Ere this work was accomplished the sun had disappeared, and it was time for our evening meal. Our fare was necessarily simple, consisting of boiled rice and a small portion of dried fish; but while I partook of it greedily, Veneda could not be induced to touch a particle.
In truth, I was beginning to be more and more alarmed about him, for instead of improving, his condition was growing perceptibly worse. His face, always thin, was now pinched and contracted almost out of recognition; only his great eyes burned like live coals in his head. His fortitude was marvellous. In place of the hasty, ill-tempered man Juanita had always described him to be, I found him patient, long-suffering, and even hopeful to an extraordinary degree. It was a piteous sight to see one hitherto so strong lying like a log, unable even to turn himself without assistance.
As soon as our meal was eaten I set to work to construct a rough sort of shelter for him with saplings and branches of trees, pressing the Malay into my service. When it was completed it was not much to look at, but it answered my purpose very well. The Malay then left us to return to his boat, a proceeding for which I was not sorry, having no desire for his company on that lonely spot all night.
You will notice that I had quite constituted myself Veneda's protector. And what a strange and wonderful thing it is, that responsibility of protection! Take for instance the man who is playing a lone hand in the Game of Life. When he has only his own safety to consider he is careless of danger to an extraordinary degree; on the other hand, give him but the slightest control over, or the right to protect any one weaker than himself, and he begins at once to discover all sorts of dangers in the very things which hitherto he has most vehemently despised. It is the same feeling which makes the strong man tremble when, in the first flush of his golden love-dream, he catches the ominous word infection, and remembers that even his great love is insufficient to protect his dear one from the insidious inroads of disease.
After the sun had been down about an hour the moon rose like a ball of gold above the farthest point of the island, revealing the waste of sea, the coral sands, the tree-tops just rocking in the evening breeze, and the dim stretch of land on either side of us. The soft ripple of the wavelets on the shore sounded like faintest music in the intense stillness, and the crooning of some belated sea-bird came like a cry across the waters. Our fire burnt merrily, and when we had sat for some time gazing into it, occupied with our own thoughts, which I can promise you were none of the happiest, Veneda said he should like to tell me his history.
Thinking it might distract his thoughts from his unhappy position, I professed myself delighted to listen, and giving the fire a final armful of fuel, stretched myself beside him.
It was then that I learnt the queer story which my Cousin Luke has told you in the first part of this book, only saving the fact that Veneda made no mention of the amount of his treasure, in what manner he had obtained it, where it was hidden away, or how another person might procure it. Even in the hour of his extremity his habitual caution did not desert him; and though he must have known himself to be little better than a dead man, he was not going to share his secret with any one else until convinced that it was impossible for him to enjoy the fruits of it himself.
Another strange point about this remarkable man was the affection he displayed for small matters connected with his boyhood. He would linger with the fondest remembrances on the most insignificant trifles. For instance, on a certain tiny trout stream in which he had been in the habit of fishing; on the different names scratched upon the pews in his school chapel; on the various natures of his boyish pets, and particularly on the vagaries of a certain one-eyed fox terrier, for whom he seemed to have cherished a singular regard. I have often noticed this peculiarity in men of his stamp, but never before in such a marked degree.
While his mind was recalling these ancient recollections his face wore an expression of unaccustomed gentleness but a moment or two later, when the name of the Albino happened to occur, the look that accompanied the utterance of it was almost diabolical in its malignity. Wrecked though he was, it would have been an ill moment for the dwarf had he ventured within the reach of those muscular brown hands.
One subject I was surprised to hear him touch upon, and that was his dismissal from the service of a London bank on a suspicion of forgery. This charge he contended, with considerable earnestness, was altogether false. He was innocent; some one else had committed the crime, and had saddled it upon him, convinced that his reckless conduct, bad reputation, and proverbial want of money would supply sufficient motives for the deed.