"Providence always wins," said Eager, with a shake of the head and a cheerful smile. "If we blind bats had our own way, what a muddle we would make of things. You would surely regret it in the end, sir."
[CHAPTER XVIII]
ALMOST SOLVED AGAIN
During that winter two events happened, much alike in their general features, apparently quite disconnected, and yet not at all improbably resulting the one from the other. Either happening might well have solved the problem of Carne.
Jack, as we have seen, had developed a certain taste for information. He could lose himself completely in the doings of Hannibal or Alexander, and found the mighty realities of history--or what were accounted as such--more to his taste than the most thrilling imaginings of the story-tellers. Jim found them good also--as retailed to him by Jack--and would sit by the hour, with open mouth and eyes and ears, taking them all in at second-hand. But sit down to one of the big books, and worry them all out for himself, he would not.
And so it came that more than once when Jack was over head and ears in some delightfully bloody action of long ago, Jim would ramble off by himself in search of amusement more to his taste, until such time as the sponge, having filled itself full, should be ready to be squeezed.
That was how he came to be strolling along the beach one lowering windy afternoon, seeking desultorily in the lip of the tide for anything the waves might have thrown up.
It was always an interesting pursuit, for you never knew what you might light on. In former times Jack had been as keen a treasure-hunter as himself, but now he was digging it out elsewhere and otherwise.
They had never found anything of value, though many a thing of mighty interest was brought ashore by the waves. A girl's wooden doll, and a boy's wooden horse, for instance, had nothing very remarkable about them; but found within a dozen yards of each other on the beach after a storm, they set even boys not used to very deep thinking, thinking deeply. Coco-nuts and oranges, and a dead sheep, and an oar, and a ship's grating--that was about as much as they ever came across, except once, when it was the awful body of a dead black man, and then they ran home, with their heads twisting fearfully over their shoulders, as fast as their legs could carry them; and saw the hideous thick white lips of him for many a night afterwards.
But though you sought in vain for years, there was always the chance of coming upon a casket of jewels sooner or later; and if you never actually found it, the possibility of it was delightfully attractive.