IV.
In Tom Chist's after recollections of that terrible time there was always a memory of a dreadful night of waking dreams mingled with the flashing lightning and the thunder of the storm that broke over the cottage, a downpour and beat of the rain upon the roof that lasted in an uproar of sound almost until morning.
Then came the dawning of a broad, wet daylight of sunshine that brought no relief.
As soon as he was up he went out of doors into the young day wet with the night's rain, and gazed out toward the offing where the mysterious sloop had been lying the day before.
It was no longer there.
It was some comfort to Tom to know that it was gone, and that it had taken those dreadful men with it. Were it not so he could not have walked a step through the day without a horrible fear that he might meet that dreadful man with the long shining knife.
He shuddered and gasped as a sudden keen memory of it all came upon him.
If he could only tell it to some one, he felt that it would be easier for him to bear; but then there was no one to whom he dared tell it; he could not tell it even to his foster-mother.
There was something especially trying to his troubled soul in his having to go out fishing with old Abrahamson that day, and it seemed to him that he suffered far more in the narrow, confined space of the little boat than he would have done upon the wide land, where he could walk about. His thoughts did not quit him for an instant. Even when he was hauling in his wet and dripping line with a struggling fish at the end of it a recurrent memory of what he had seen would suddenly come upon him, and he would writhe and twist in spirit at the recollection. If he could only tell about it, even to old Abrahamson, it would be some relief. But when he looked at the old man's leathery face, at his lantern jaws cavernously and stolidly chewing at a tobacco leaf, he felt that it was not possible for him to confide his terrible secret to him.
When the boat touched the shore again he leaped scrambling to the beach, with a feeling of unutterable relief.
As soon as his dinner was eaten he ran away to find the Dominie Jones, and to pour out his troubles to those friendly ears.
He ran on, all the way from the hut to the parson's house, hardly stopping once in all the way, and when he knocked at the door he was panting and sobbing for breath.
The good man was sitting on the back-kitchen door-step smoking his long pipe of tobacco out into the sunlight, while his wife within was rattling around among the pans and dishes in preparation of their supper, of which a strong porky smell already filled the air.
Tom Chist never could tell how he got his story told, but somehow, in convulsive fits and starts, panting and gasping for breath, he did manage to tell it all.
Parson Jones listened with breathless and perfect silence, broken only now and then by inarticulate ejaculations.
"And I don't know why they should have killed the poor black man," said Tom, as he finished his narrative.
"Why, that is very easy enough to understand," said the good reverend man. "'Twas a treasure-box they buried, Tom. A treasure-box! A treasure-box!"
In his excitement Mr. Jones had got up from his seat and was stamping up and down, smoking out great clouds of tobacco smoke into the hot air.
"A treasure-box?" cried out Tom.
"Ay, a treasure-box! And that was why they killed the poor black man. He was the only one, d'ye see, beside they two who knew the place where 'twas hid, and now that they've killed him out of the way, there's nobody but themselves knows. The villains— Tut, tut, look at that, now!" In his excitement the dominie had snapped the stem of his tobacco-pipe in two.
"Why, then," said Tom, "if that is indeed so, 'tis indeed a wicked, bloody treasure, and fit to bring a curse upon anybody who finds it!"
"'Tis more like to bring a curse upon the soul who buried it," said Parson Jones; "and it may be a blessing to him who finds it. But tell me, Tom, do you think you could find the place again where 'twas hid?"
"I can't tell that," said Tom. "'Twas all in among the sand humps, d'ye see, and it was at night into the bargain. Maybe we could find the marks of their feet in the sand," he added.
"'Tis not likely," said the reverend gentleman, "for the storm last night would have washed all that away."
"I could find the place," said Tom, "where the boat was drawn up on the beach."
"Why, then, that's something to start from, Tom," said his friend. "If we can find that, then maybe we can find whither they went from there."
"If I was certain it was a treasure-box," cried out Tom Chist, "I would rake over every foot of sand betwixt here and Henlopen for to find it."
"'Twould be like hunting for a pin in a haystack," said the Reverend Hillary Jones.
As Tom walked away home, it seemed not only as though a ton's weight of gloom had been rolled away from his soul, but as though he could hardly contain himself with the prospect of treasure-hunting the next day to look forward to.