XXXIV
To one who did not know Tom Horn very well, his manner and his occupations, after Anthony left the city, did not change. He still arose and was abroad while the dawn was touching the river and took his breakfast standing at the bar of the Boatswain-and-Call. Then through Water Street, freshly awakened; with a great copper key he'd open the counting-room door at Rufus Stevens' Sons; it was dusty and silent, for but a trickle of trade ran through it now; but Tom would gravely take off his coat and hang it away; then he'd put on a worn jacket, mount his high stool, and the day had begun.
But what was this scrawling of figures on bits of paper? What was this endless computing and calculating and balancing of facts? As the day wore on he would be surrounded by these fragments, each bearing a mysterious statement; and his mind seemed laboring with some dimly seen thing. He descended into vast pits of speculation and emerged with fresh figures to be worked into new results. But that was not all; in the midst of these calculations he'd be seized with fits of bodily activity; he'd get down from his stool, put on his coat and his tall, shabby hat, and hurry out, locking the door behind him. And these errands always had to do with wind and weather; ships and shipmen also took their places in his interests, as did tides and changes of the moon, and wrecks and loss, and bitter news. Steeped in these he'd hurry back to the silent counting-room; then more figures, more descents into the pit, more reveries, more striving toward the thing sensed so clearly but so dimly seen.
Of a night, after he had taken his supper and read the "Gazette" at the tavern, he'd make his way to Christopher Dent's; the two would sit with the window open and the evening air stirring in the room, and they'd talk.
"There is no thing so natural as a circle," said Tom Horn. "The world is shaped like one; it moves in one. Every finished movement is a circle. The tides of the sea move in a vast one."
"To the eye, at least, the sun and moon are round," agreed Christopher. "Though the stars, indeed, seem to depart from the rule, and have points."
"There are as many tides in the sea," said Tom Horn, "as there are winds. And the winds are countless." He drew his chair nearer the little apothecary, and his voice lowered. "There are waters," said he, with the strange, luminous look in his face, "that crawl through the sea like great serpents; they bend themselves across the world, and ring in hopeless things."
"I have beard tales of such," said Christopher, "but I have not been able to credit them. For how can one body of water move through another and keep its integrity?"
"They are like great serpents," maintained Tom Horn, "miles broad, and with the movements of the earth and moon behind them. Storms blow across these currents, but a storm's authority is only for a moment, and the current goes on; meeting others like it, they join, and so the sea is encircled. And in the center of this circle," said Tom Horn, "is a dead spot, like an ulcer, where all helpless things drift and stay—broken ships and broken men; there they lie, bleaching in the strange lights, and with silent death coming toward them out of the mist and darkness."
"That," said the little apothecary, "would be the Grassy Sea—the Sargasso, as the Spanish shipmen called it. I've heard it spoken of more than once. A strange place," and Christopher shook his head; "a queer, still place, I have no doubt; and they say few men who have seen it have lived to tell of it."
"The currents drag all things about with them which have not the service of the winds," said Tom Horn. "Around they go in the circle, around and around, all the time getting nearer and nearer to its inner edge; and then they drift into the dead spot, and the Sargasso has them for evermore."
"An unhappy fate," said Christopher. "A most unhappy one."
There was a silence; then Tom Horn put out his hand and touched the little apothecary on the knee.
"In mid-Atlantic," said he, "there are no reefs or bars; if a ship is stout and honest she does not readily sink in deep water."
"No," said Christopher, "she should not. There is reason in that."
"If a ship, known to be the work of steady, good artificers, is seen in great distress in mid-ocean," said Tom Horn, "in great distress, but most likely whole of hull, what warrant have we in afterwards thinking her at the bottom of the sea?"
"Why," said the apothecary, his eyes growing round, "I do not know. I have given such possibilities but little thought."
"As there were no rocks to dash her on, and no sands to trap her, reason says she might still be afloat," said Tom Horn. He seemed suddenly excited and got to his feet.
"An honest, good ship, mind you—and in mid-ocean! Who can be sure she'd foundered? With her timbers tight and her hatches down, who can be sure her cargo has been injured?" He took up his hat, and Christopher saw that his hand trembled as he did so. "I will be going," said Tom Horn; "it is past my bedtime, and there is a deal for me to do to-morrow. I have many figures to set down and much study to give them. Good night."
"Good night," said Christopher, rounder-eyed than ever. He followed Tom to the door, and watched him down Water Street. "Good night."
Christopher, after he'd seen the odd clerk out of sight, shut the door, and sat down. But he did not sit long; in a few moments he was up and pacing the floor in much agitation; then he busied himself with some formulas, ground many powders and weighed them in a tiny scale. But he could not take his mind from the surprising thought Tom Horn had planted there; and afterward, when he had gone to bed, he lay and counted the hours each time the clock struck them; at three he fell asleep, and dreamed of wondrous events, and happenings that made him marvel.
It was the middle of the morning when he left off his work, brushed his coat, went to the side door, and asked to see mademoiselle. And while he sat upon the edge of a chair, she upon a sofa before him, he told her, word for word, as well as he could remember, of what Tom Horn had said the night before.
"Too much heed can be given to such things," said Christopher; "for we all have our desires, and so may be led astray by speculations which have no substance. And, again, poor Tom, while a person of many rare qualities is—so it's thought—odd in his manner and in his thinking. So this may be a mad thing only. But it's kept with me all night long and has been at the elbow of my mind so far in the morning; and I thought it as well to speak to some one who I knew had interest in the matter."
There was a spot of color in each of the cheeks of mademoiselle; her eyes sparkled with eager excitement. She asked Christopher many questions; he answered as fully as he could; all the things the clerk had said, he repeated, but further than that he could not go.
"It may be his fancy, as I've said," he told mademoiselle. "I'd pin no faith to it that it carried any value."
"And why not?" asked the girl. "Why should you not? For me, I'd credit him with a deal of knowledge, a deal deeper than most. His mind is quite clear, for all his manner is odd, as the matters I've heard he's said to Anthony Stevens and the things he's pointed out have shown. He is the one among them all in the counting-room who had the keenness to see and the purpose to remember."
"It is so," said the little apothecary. "It is so, indeed. I had something of that in my mind, and it troubled me."
"I should like to speak with him," said mademoiselle. "It may be that with questioning he would say more."
"That's a thing that's easily put to the test," said Christopher. "He lives in Pump Court, but a step or so from this; and we shall go see him any time you wish."
"Thank you," said the girl. "If he returns to your shop in a night or two, send me word; if not, we shall go see him, as you say."
And so Christopher Dent went at once back to his apothecary shop, and in a much more peaceful state of mind.