Shaking me by the hand, he bade me good-bye, and went out, leaving me to the doctor, who thereupon began his medical examination, interspersing it with many good-natured sallies. From him I learnt that Sir Richard Tremorden was returning from a yachting trip to Japan, viâ Borneo and Java, to Singapore. The yacht was full of his friends, and it was only just by chance that he, the doctor, had been able to make one of the party. Furthermore, it was Lady Tremorden who first caught sight of my signal, and it was a strange coincidence that she it was who had proposed leaving their course to take a look at the island.
While we were talking, the steward brought me a large cup of beef-tea, and after he had helped me to sit up to it, the kindly little medico withdrew, having elicited all the information he could, concerning myself and my profession, for the information of the ladies on deck. When I was alone, I found myself face to face with a situation I had not before contemplated. How was I to account for my presence on the island without introducing the subject of our escape from Batavia? I thought and thought, but without telling a downright untruth I could see no way out of it. At last, after a deal of earnest consideration, I determined, if asked, to say that, having nothing to do for a while, I had accompanied a Malay on a sailing-trip. We touched at the island, and while I was ashore he cleared out and left me. This was the only course I could see. I had my own reasons for saying nothing about Veneda.
After lunch, dressed in a white duck suit of Sir Richard's, and having removed from my face the fortnight's beard that covered it, I went on deck, and was presented in proper form to the ladies, who, you may be sure, were all on the qui vive to hear my story. This, as soon as I could, I told them, and I must own that I blushed to hear their vigorous denunciations of the treacherous Malay. Lady Tremorden was particularly gracious, and to her I hastened to express my deep debt of gratitude.
When I look back upon the strange experiences of that year, I always think of that short voyage on board the Esmeralda as one of the few parts of it I should care to undergo again. I said as much to Sir Richard the other day, when I met him in London at a certain club of which we are both members. He laughed and answered—
"You were as good as a tonic to us, we had had no sensation since one of the hands fell overboard in Nagasaki."
Early next morning we reached Singapore, where I was to bid my kind friends "farewell." Before I left the yacht, Sir Richard invited me to his cabin, and in a real spirit of friendliness asked me how I stood with regard to money, offering to become my banker if I should require anything to help me along. But as I still possessed a fair amount of the Albino's loan, this kind offer I was able to decline, though of course I was none the less grateful to the generous thought which prompted it.
By nightfall the yacht had coaled, and proceeded on her way to Saigon, and, nothing else offering, I had signed myself on the Turkish Pacha, to work my way home before the mast.
She was a powerful old Ocean Tramp, homeward bound from Hong Kong. Strangely enough, to show how small the world is, it happened that her second officer was none other than young Belton, who was third mate of the Beretania when I was chief officer. I suppose I must have looked very much the same as the other fo'c'sle hands, for though we were often thrown together, we were off the South Foreland before he recognized me. Then, up to a certain point, and with numberless reservations that quite altered the face of it, I told him my story. I don't suppose he believed it for an instant; doubtless he thought me a wonderful liar, and put it all down as the result of a liking for strong waters. But I must do him the justice to admit, that when we were paid off he proffered me a loan, my non-acceptance of which must have puzzled him considerably.
The time was now coming for me to ascertain what truth there was in the story Veneda had told me of his fortune. But as I had passed my word to him not to open the locket within a month of my arrival in London, I had to look about me for a place to stay in until that time should expire. Having sufficient money to keep me for at least six weeks in comparative comfort, I resolved to put up at a quiet place I knew of, near the East India Docks, until the end of that period, and then to open the locket and try my success.
Somehow or other, though I had been assured by Veneda of its worth, though I wore it round my neck as a tangible proof of its reality, and had been warned of the attempts that would in all probability be made to obtain possession of it, I was not altogether a believer in the likelihood of its doing very much for me. I had been devoid of luck so long that I began to believe no more could ever come my way. So, all things considered, I should not have been overwhelmed with astonishment, had I on opening it discovered the information it contained to be entirely valueless.