The years since that momentous day had been something to Colonel Kenwynton, and but for this man’s courage and devotion he would not have lived them.
“Hugh, dear old boy, remember one fact. Through everything misty, I trust you; I trust you implicitly, Hugh. I know your honorable motives. Tell me anything you will, but through thick and thin I trust you.”
“The Ducie valuables are what I am coming to,” said Treherne uneasily, his voice husky, his articulation muffled, his tongue thick. “We hid ’em—Archie and I. We hid ’em at Duciehurst in the mansion. That is what I want to tell you.”
He paused to gaze about, pointing wildly, now up, now down the river.
“Then we crossed there, no, there, and landed on the Arkansas side. We had put Mrs. Ducie and Julian into the skiff, which we rowed ourselves. She had a lot of things with her that she was taking to Victor, bed-linen, blankets, clothes, medicines, wines and such like, so hard to come by in the Confederacy in those times. We landed there, no, there.”
Again he was pointing wildly from place to place. Now and then he took short, agile runs to and fro, as if he sought a better view in the windy obscurity.
“It was very cold and a pitch black night. We almost got under the hull of a Yankee gunboat—she was a vessel that had been captured from the Confederates, armored with iron rails, you know—that kind of iron-clad. As she swung at anchor I wonder the suction didn’t swamp us, but it didn’t. The look-out on deck never challenged nor heard us. We hit it like the bull’s eye, at the Arkansas landing,—Archie knew every twist and quirk in the current like an old song, born at Duciehurst, you know. And after we made it to the farm-house, where Victor was lying at the point of death it seemed, we returned to our command according to orders, our leave being expired, for we had already hid the box in the knapsack at Duciehurst. And that’s all.”
He laid his hand on Colonel Kenwynton’s shoulder and gazed wistfully into his face. Day was coming surely, for the elder man’s feebler vision read a strange fact in those eyes, a fact that made him shudder, even when half perceived, a fact against which his credulity revolted.
“Hugh, Hugh, why in the name of God have you not produced those papers, restored the gold and jewels?”
“Why, why, why,” Treherne’s voice rose to a shriek. “Why, I have forgotten where they were hidden. Forgotten! Forgotten! Forgotten!”