I was very willing he should think me half-witted. He went grumbling up the stairs; I turned me again to the picture of the sailor's return. Whydah--the Guinea coast--the ship Royal Fortune! It may have been in some part the man's eagerness to deny all knowledge of the ship; it was, no doubt, in some part the picture of those gold watches, which awakened my memories. Watches of just such gold were dangling for sale on a pedler's stall when first I heard of the ship Royal Fortune. The whole scene came back to me most vividly--the market-place of an old country town upon a fair day, the carts, the crowds, the merry-go-rounds, the pedler's stall with the sham gold watches, and close by the stall a ragged hawker singing a ballad of the Royal Fortune, and selling copies of the ballad--a ballad to which was added the last confessions of four men hung for piracy at Cape Coast Castle within the flood-marks. It was well over twenty years since that day, but I remembered it now with a startling distinctness. There was a rough woodcut upon the title-page of the ballad representing four men hanging in chains upon four gibbets. I had bought one that afternoon, and my father had taken it from me and thrashed me soundly for reading it. But I had read it! My memory was quickened now to an almost supernatural clearness. I could almost turn over the pages in my mind and read it again. All four men--one of them was named Ashplant, a second Moody--went to the gallows without any sign of penitence. There was a third so grossly stupid--yes, his name was Hardy--so stupid that during his last moments he could think of nothing more important than the executioner's tying his wrists behind his back, and his last words were before they swung him off to the effect that he had seen many men hanged, but none with their hands tied in this way. The fourth--I could not recall his name, but he swore very heartily, saying that he would rather go to hell than to heaven, since he would find no pirates in heaven to keep him company, and that he would give Roberts a salute of thirteen guns at entrance. There was the story of a sea-fight, too, besides the ballad and the confessions and it all cost no more than a penny. What a well-spent penny! The fourth man's name, by-the-bye, was Sutton.
But the sea-fight! It was fought not many miles from Whydah between His Majesty's ship Swallow and the Royal Fortune; for the Royal Fortune was sailed by Captain Bartholomew Roberts, the famous pirate who was killed in this very encounter. How did George Glen or Adam Mayle or Peter Tortue (for he alone of Glen's assistants was of an age to have shipped on the Royal Fortune) escape? I did not care a button. I had my thumb on George Glen, and was very well content.
There was no doubt I had my thumb on the insinuating George. There was Adam Mayle's fortune, in the first place; there was Adam's look when George Glen let slip the name of the ship when he first came to Tresco; there was Glen's consternation this evening when I repeated it to him, and there was something more than his convincing than his consternation--a table-knife.
He had come very close to me when I mentioned the Royal Fortune, and he had stood a little behind me--against the table at which I had eaten my supper. I had eaten that supper at the opposite side of the table, and how should a table-knife have crawled across the table and be now lying so handily on this nearer edge unless George had doubts of my discretion? Yes, I had my thumb upon him and as I went upstairs to bed I wondered whether after all Helen would be justified of her confidence in believing that I had been sent to Tresco to some good end. Her face was very present to me that night. There was much in her which I could not understand. There was something, too, to trouble one, there were concealments, it almost seemed there was a trace of effrontery--such as Lieutenant Clutterbuck had spoken of; but to-night I was conscious chiefly that she set her faith in me and my endeavours. Does the reed always break if you lean upon it? What if a miracle happened and the reed grew strong because some one--any one--leaned upon it! I kept that trustful face of hers as I had seen it in the sunlight, long before my eyes in the darkness of the room. But it changed, as I knew and feared it would,--it changed to that appalling face which had stared at me out of the dark. I tried to drive that picture of her from my thoughts.
But I could not, until a door creaked gently. I sat up in my bed with a thought of that knife handy on the table edge to the grasp of George Glen. I heard a scuffle of shoeless feet draw towards my door, and I remembered that I had no weapon--not even a knife. The feet stopped at my door, and I seemed to hear the sound of breathing. The moon had already sunk, but the night was clear, and I watched the white door and the white woodwork of the door frame. The door was in the wall on my right; it was about midway between the head and the foot of my bed, and it opened inwards and down towards the foot; so that I should easily see it opening. But suddenly I heard the stair boards creaking. Whoever it was then, had merely stopped to listen at my door. I fell back on my bed with a relief so great as to surprise me. I was surprised, too, to find myself cold with sweat. I determined to buy myself a knife in the morning, for there was the girl over at Merchant's Point who looked to me. I had thus again a picture of her in the sunlight.
And then I began to wonder at that stealthy descent of the stairs. And why should any one wish to assure himself I slept? This was a question to be looked into. I got out of bed very cautiously, as cautiously opened the door and peered out.
There was a light burning in the kitchen--a small yellow light as of a candle, but I could hear no sound. I crept to the head of the stairs which were steep and led directly to the very threshold of the kitchen. I lay down on the boards of the landing and stretching my head down the stairs, looked into the room.
George Glen had taken the sailor with the watches, down from the wall. He was seated with the candle at his elbow, and minutely examining the picture. He looked up towards the stairs, I drew my face quickly back; but he was gazing in a complete abstraction, and biting his thumb, very much puzzled. I crept back to bed and in a little I heard him come shuffling up the stairs. He had been examining that picture to find a reason for my exclamation. It was a dull-witted thing to do and I could have laughed at him heartily, only I had already made a mistake in taking him to be duller-witted than he was. For he was quick enough, at all events, to entertain suspicions.