"I am no philosopher. It is the truth I tell you," I answered, simply; and the face of Cullen Mayle appeared at the doorway of the parlour, so that no more was said.
CHAPTER XVIII
[MY PERPLEXITIES ARE EXPLAINED]
There is no need for me to tell at any length the conversation that passed between the three of us that night. Cullen Mayle spoke frankly of his journey to the Sierra Leone River.
"Mr. Berkeley," he said, "already knows so much, that I doubt it would not be of any avail to practise mysteries with him. And besides there is no need, for, if I mistake not, Mr. Berkeley can keep a secret as well as any man."
He spoke very politely, but with a keen eye on me to notice whether I should show any confusion or change colour. But I made as though I attached no significance to his words beyond mere urbanity. He told us how he made his passage to the Guinea Coast as a sailor before the mast, and then fell in with George Glen. It seemed prudent to counterfeit a friendly opinion that the cross would be enough for all. But when they discovered the cross was gone from its hiding place, he took the first occasion to give them the slip.
"For I had no doubt that my father had been beforehand," said he. "Had I possessed more wisdom, I might have known as much when I heard him from my bed refuse his assistance to George Glen, and so saved myself an arduous and a perilous adventure. For my father, was he never so rich, was not the man to turn his back on the King of Portugal's cross."
Of his father, Cullen spoke with good nature and a certain hint of contempt; and he told us much which he had learned from George Glen. "He went by the name of Kennedy," said Cullen, "but they called him 'Crackers' for the most part. He was not on the Royal Fortune at the time when Roberts was killed, so that he was never taken prisoner with the rest, nor did he creep out of Cape Corse Castle like George Glen."
"Then he was never tried or condemned," said Helen, who plainly found some relief in that thought.
"No!" answered Cullen, with a chuckle. "But why? He played rob-thief--a good game, but it requires a skilled player. I would never have believed Adam had the skill. Roberts put him in command of a sloop called the Ranger, which he had taken in the harbour of Bahia, and when he put out to sea on that course which brought him into conjunction with the Swallow, he left the Ranger behind in Whydah Bay. And what does Adam do but haul up his anchor as soon as Roberts was out of sight, and, being well content with his earnings, make sail for Maryland, where the company was disbanded. I would I had known that on the day we quarrelled. Body o' me, but I would have made the old man quiver. Well, Adam came home to England, settled at Bristol, where he married, and would no doubt have remained there till his death, had he not fallen in with one of his old comrades on the quay. That frightened him, so he come across to Tresco, thinking to be safe. And safe he was for twenty years, until George Glen nosed him out."