Book Two—Chapter Seven.
“I Think You’re Going on a Wild-Goose Chase.”
Halcott paused, and gazed seawards over the great stretch of wet beach.
So wet was it that the sun’s parting rays lit it up in great stripes of crimson chequered with gold.
And yonder are the children coming slowly home across these painted sands.
A strange group, most certainly, but united in one bond of union—oh, would that all the world were so!—the bond of love.
The brother’s arm is placed gently around his sister’s waist; the Admiral is stepping drolly by Ransey’s side, with his head and neck thrust through the lad’s arm.
Something seems to tell the bird that fate, which took away his master before, might take him once again.
Bob brings up the rear. His head is low towards the sands, but he feels very happy and satisfied with his afternoon’s outing.
Halcott once more lit his pipe.
The two others were silent, and Mr Tandy nodded when Halcott smiled and looked towards him.
“Yes,” he said, “there is a little more of my story yet untold; there is a portion of it still in the future, I trust. With this, however, destiny alone has to do. Suffice it to say, that as far as Doris and myself—my simple sailor-self—are concerned, we shall be married when I return from my next cruise, if all goes well, and, like two vessels leaving the harbour on just such a beautiful night as this, sail away to begin our voyage of life on just such a beautiful sea.
“You must both know Doris before I start. But where, think you, do I mean to sail to next? No, do not answer till I tell you one thing. Neither Doris nor her mother received, while in that little lake island, the slightest injury or insult.”
“Then there is some good in the breast of even the wildest savage,” put in Weathereye. “I always thought so; bother me if I didn’t. Ahem!”
“Ah, wait, Captain Weathereye, wait! I fear my experience is different from yours. Those fiendish savages on that Isle of Misfortune were reserving my dear Doris and her mother for a fate far more terrible than anything ever described in books of imagination.
“We rescued them, by God’s mercy, just in time. They were then under the protection of the awful priests, or medicine-men, and were being fed on fruits and on the petals of rare and beautiful flowers. Their hut itself was composed of flowers and foliage.
“The king, no, not even he, could come near them, until the medicine-men had propitiated the demons that live, according to their belief, in every wood and in every ravine and gully in the island.
“Then, at the full of the moon, on that tiny islet I have marked on the map, the king and his warriors would assemble at midnight, and the awful orgies would commence.
“I shudder even now when I think of it. I happily cannot describe to you the tortures these poor ladies would have been put to before the final, fearful act. But the king would drink ‘white blood.’ He would then be invulnerable. No foe could any more prevail against him.
“While the blood was still flowing, the stake-fires would-be lit, and—
“But I’ll say no more; a cannibal feast would have concluded the ceremonies.”
“You mean to say,” cried Weathereye, bringing his fist, and a good-sized one it was, down with a bang on the sill of the open window by which he sat—“do you mean to tell me that these devils incarnate would have burned the poor dear ladies alive, then? Oh, horrible!”
“I said that they meant to; but look at this!”
He handed Weathereye a small yellow dagger.
“What a strange little knife! But why, I say, Halcott, Tandy, this knife is made of gold—solid, hammered gold!”
“Yes,” said Halcott; “and it is this dagger of hammered gold that would have saved my poor Doris and her mother from the torture and the stake.
“But,” he added, “not this dagger only, but every implement in the cave of those fearsome priests was fashioned from the purest gold.”
“This is indeed a strange story,” said Tandy.
“And now, gentlemen,” added Halcott, “can you guess to what seas my barque shall sail next?”
Tandy rose from his seat and took two or three turns up and down the floor.
He was a man who made up his mind quickly enough, and it is such men as these, and only such, who get well on in the world.
Weathereye and Halcott both kept silence. They were watching Tandy.
“Halcott,” said the latter, approaching the captain of the Sea Flower—“Halcott, have you kept your secret?”
“Secret?”
“Yes. I mean, do many save yourself know of the existence of gold on that island of blood?”
“None save me. No one has even seen the knife but myself and you.”
“Good. You love the Sea Flower?”
“I love the Sea Flower as every sailor loves, or ought to love, his ship. I wish I could afford to buy her out and out.”
“The other shares are in the market then?”
Tandy was seated now cross-legged on a chair, and leaning over the back of it, bending towards Halcott with an earnest light, in his eyes, such as few had ever seen therein.
“The other shares are for sale,” said Halcott.
It was just at this moment that Ransey Tansey and little Nelda came, or rather burst into the room. Both were breathless, both were rosy; and Bob, who came in behind them, was panting, with half a yard of tongue—well, perhaps, not quite so much—hanging red over his alabaster teeth.
“O daddy,” cried Babs, as father still called her, “we’ve had such fun! And the ’Ral,” (a pet name that the crane had somehow obtained possession of) “dug up plenty of pretty things for us, and he wanted Bob to eat a big white worm, only Bob wouldn’t.”
One of his children stood on each side of him, and he had placed one arm round each.
Thus Tandy faced Halcott once more, smiling, perhaps, a little sadly now.
“I can buy those shares, Halcott. Do not think me ambitious. A money-grabber I never was. But, you see these little tots. Ransey here can make his way in the world.—Can’t you, Ransey?”
“Rather, father,” said Ransey.
“But, Halcott, though I am not in the flower of my youth, I’m in the prime of my manhood, and I’d do everything I know to build up a shelter for my little Babs against the cold winds of adversity before I—But I must not speak of anything sad before the child.”
“You have a long life before you, I trust,” said Weathereye.
Tandy seemed to hear him not.
“I’d go as your mate.”
The two sailors shook hands.
“You’ll go as my friend, and keep watch if you choose.”
“Agreed!”
“Bravo!” cried Weathereye. “Shiver my jib, as sailors say in books, if I wouldn’t like to go along with both of you!”
“Why not, Captain Weathereye?”
The staff-commander laughed. “Not this cruise, lads, though I’m not afraid for my life, or the little that may be left of it, and you must take care of yours. I think myself you are going on a kind of wild-goose chase, and that the goose—that is, the gold—will have the best of it, by keeping out of your way. Well, anyhow, I’ll come and see you both over the bar. Where do you sail from?”
“Southampton.”
“Good! and the last person you’ll see as you drop out to sea will be old Weathereye in a boat waving his red bandana to wish you luck. Good-night!
“Good-night, little Babs! How provokingly pretty she is, Tandy! better leave her at Scragley Hall, and the crane too. She’ll be well looked after, you may figure upon that. Come and give the old man a kiss, dear.”
But Nelda hung her head.
“Not if you say that, Captain Weathereye. Wherever ever daddy goes, I go with him. I’m not going to let my brother run away to sea and leave me again.”
“And you won’t give me Bob?” said Weathereye.
“Oh, no!”
“Nor the Admiral?”
Nelda looked up in the old captain’s face now.
“I’m just real sorry for you,” she said; “but the Hal’s going and all—you may figure on that.”
Weathereye laughed heartily.
Then he drew the child gently towards him and kissed her little sun-browned hand.
“May God be with you, darling, where’er on earth you roam! And with you all. Good-night again.”
And away went honest Captain Weathereye.