CHAPTER XXV.—BRINGS THE QUEST TO AN END.
Silent and pale as death, Don turned and stood for a moment facing Haunted Pagoda Hill, with head bared. His thoughts were with the captain as he had seen him on that terrible evening of the murder. Plainer than words his attitude cried:
“Avenged!”
The other natives had taken advantage of the opportunity afforded by the pursuit of the shark-charmer to make good their escape. Captain Leigh accordingly ordered the peons back to the schooner. Their mission was at an end.
At the head of the stairs they came upon Bosin. The monkey at once clambered on to Don's shoulder, happier far than his new master.
Here, too, as they were about to turn their backs upon the spot where death had hovered in ever-narrowing circles about their heads through the hopeless hours of that awful night and day, Jack and Don joined hands and silently renewed the friendship which had here been put to so crucial a test. Our boy-friendships seldom pass the boundary line of youth and manhood; or, if they do, too often become tarnished and neglected things in which we find no pleasure. Theirs, just then, seemed fit to last a lifetime.
“Say!” cried Jack abruptly, when he had done wringing his chunks hand, “what about the pearls, old fellow? You're surely not going off without them after all the trouble we've had? I'm not, anyhow!”
Jack was nothing if not practical.
Captain Leigh, who was standing by, overheard the words, and approached with a curious, not to say mysterious, smile on his lips.
“What! not had enough of it yet, Jack?” said he, in bantering tones.
“Not I, sir! Where's the use of being half cut to bits if one doesn't get what one's after? I shan't be content till I handle the shiners.”
“And where do you purpose looking for them?”
Jack's face fell.. It was not easy to find an answer to this question.
“Perhaps I can assist you,” continued Captain Leigh, with a repetition of his mysterious smile. “This quest of yours, boys, has been a string of surprises from the very start, judging by what I have heard and seen of it. So, just to keep the ball rolling, we'll wind up with the biggest surprise of all.”
And slipping his fingers into his waistcoat pocket, to the astonishment of the young men he drew therefrom the identical wash-leather case which they had all along, and with good reason, supposed to be in the shark-charmer's possession.
“Why—how—?” Don began, hardly able to believe his eyes.
Jack interrupted him.
“Don't you see how it is?” cried he. “The governor's running a rig on us. Old Salambo took the pearls, but left the bag; it's empty, of course!”
Captain Leigh quietly turned the pouch upside-down, and poured into the palm of his left hand a little silvery heap with a shimmer of pale gold in its midst. This he pushed into full view with his finger. It was the Golden Pearl.
“You don't mean to say we've been on a wild-goose chase all this time?” gasped Jack.
“A downright fool's errand!” muttered Don, in tones of intense disgust.
“No; neither one nor the other,” interposed Captain Leigh. “Don't go scattering self-accusations of that sort about before you hear my explanation—though it's a queer business, I must acknowledge,” he added, with a laugh. “Will you hear it out now or wait till we go on board?”
“Tell us one thing,” put in Don; “were the pearls stolen at all?”
“No, they were not, or I should not be able to produce them. But the shark-charmer was none the less a thief, for all that. But I see you're on tenterhooks to hear all about it, so I'll read you the riddle at once.”
Carefully restoring the pearls to the pouch, he handed the treasure to Don, and then resumed:
“It goes without saying, of course, that you remember the evening you brought the pearls on board. Well, shortly after you had placed them in the locker—you had just turned in, I think—I got an uneasy sort of feeling that they were not as safe there as they should be——”
“So you took them into your state-room!” interrupted Don, who thought he began to see light.
“Exactly. The companion door was open, you recollect, and the shark-charmer, I suppose, must have been hanging about at the moment and seen me. Very imprudently, as it turned out, I left my door on the latch, though I took the precaution to put the pearls under my pillow. You remember, perhaps, my paying off some of the men that afternoon? Well, when I turned in I left the bag of rupees—or rather what remained of them, about two hundred in all, I should think—on the sofa opposite my berth, and my gold chronometer on the stand at my head, as I always do. I slept like a top until I was called at three, when we got under weigh. At this time, you understand, I was under the impression that you two were snug between the sheets. The schooner was a dozen miles down the coast before I found out my mistake. Being due in Colombo the following day, you see, I couldn't put back. Neither could I make head nor tail of your disappearance until the carrier brought your letter, Don. That made the whole matter plain enough. You had found the locker empty, supposed that the shark-charmer had stolen the pearls, and had given chase.”
“Then,” cried Jack, “what I said a minute ago was right enough, after all. The pearls were safe, and we've been on a jolly wild-goose chase.”
“Oh, no; that doesn't follow. The shark-charmer left the schooner far from empty-handed. He stole the bag of rupees and the watch.”
“Ah, but what about the handkerchief the pearls were tied up in?” asked Don. “I fished it out of the water off the island here. How do you account for that?”
“I must have thrown the handkerchief on the sofa. Probably the fellow snatched it up with the bag of rupees, thinking that it still contained the pearls.”
“And threw it away when he found that it didn't,” chuckled Jack. “Well, the shiners are all right, anyhow!”
Nightfall found the schooner bowling towards the open sea under full sail. Three figures stood grouped on her deck in the fading twilight.
“It was just about here,” said Don in a choked voice:
“Here, a sheer hulk, lies poor Tom Bowling,
The darling of our crew;
No more he'll hear the tempest howling,
For death has broached him to.
His form was of the manliest beauty,
His heart was kind and soft;
Faithful below he did his duty,
But now he's gone aloft.”
All three uncovered and stood with bowed heads until the old sailor's resting-place was left far behind.