"Through those books," said he, "I hoped to come at certain things that have been troubling this house."
"What things?" asked Charles. He wore a smiling lightness; but there was a sick look in his eyes.
"I don't know," said Anthony. "I can only hazard a guess." He regarded his uncle a moment, his hand still on his arm. "Up to this time I have never spoken to you directly," said he, "and I had not meant to until I had all the facts that it were possible to collect. But I ask you, now: has it never come into your mind that things here have not been well?"
"Nothing could come out of those old books but ghosts," said Charles. "Ghosts of old transactions, of old merchants, of old voyages. Shall we give time to such things now,—shadows, matters past and done,—when there is so much present substance to engage one's attentions? Let us fill our minds with the future, for the future has gifts to give, and all its days are unused. The past is dust. Let us close our eyes to it; let us put its sad corpses back into their graves." Charles patted Anthony on the back. "Come, now! You've spoken of this once; let that once be enough." He went to a cabinet, took out a decanter, and poured out two brimming goblets of wine. "To the days ahead!" said Charles. "To the good days ahead: a sharp lookout, swift voyages, and rich cargoes!"
In the immediate days that followed this, Charles was more active than any one had ever seen him before. A fever of energy seemed to consume him; he tracked up and down the floor of his private room, his lame foot dragging, his brain glowing and planning; the letters he wrote went to the ends of the world. May passed. June came and spent its sunny days. And on one of these the Rufus Stevens slipped down the ways and into the water—a mighty ship, her hull dipping and bowing before hundreds. And how the workmen swarmed in her; how her masts reared when set in place; how wide and smooth and clean her deck was! What wondrous spaces were in the hold! What excellent quarters for'ard! What enormous yards and sails. And the goods that were stored in her! There seemed no end to it! And then she sailed away for the Far East, sail over sail, her bow cutting the water and piling it whitely about her. Charles and Anthony and Captain Weir left her outside the capes, and, from the deck of a sloop, saw her wing away into the depths beyond the ocean's curve.
"With wind and weather," said Charles, "she'll dock in Calcutta in ninety days. And next spring, when the ice is well out, she'll show her topsails in the river once again. And then," he slapped Anthony gleefully on the back, "I'll engage to surprise you. Such a cargo as she'll carry you'll never have seen before. I'll make their eyes pop," said Charles extravagantly, his own snapping with expectation. "There has never been any merchandizing in this port that could properly be called such. Small ships make narrow markets; trade has been undernourished. But with vessels like the Rufus Stevens we'll mark a change; we'll come to our due now, swiftly enough."
In the days that followed this, Charles fitted back into his old habits and ways. He was cheerful and easy; he ceased walking the floor; he sat in the corner of his sofa and dreamed; he talked with confidence of the great gull of a ship, pushing eastward around the world. He loved the idea of her return. That day was to be one of amazements; strange lights were to be in the sky; the ship, as though manned by genii and sailing out of enchanted seas, was to appear suddenly, magnificently laden. What was to result was like the providence of a young and generous god; wharves and warehouses were to be showered with extraordinary stuffs.
Charles touched this picture with a new color each day; and every touch seemed to fit him more snugly into his old groove. Each sad corpse, of which he had spoken to Anthony, had been buried deep, and its dull woe had been buried with it. He took his old, careless hold upon the business; he gave unusual orders in a casual way; he chuckled over the pages of "Tom Jones"; he voyaged with his robust old mariners; he laughed with the dramatists of the Restoration. Fear fell from him.
July, hot, wearing, lowering, drew its length through the port; and out of the steam and stink of it a terror grew and took shape. Among the islands, the Barbados distemper lifted its head. But it had done this in every hot season in the memory of living men, and so no attention was paid to it. A ship brought its poisonous essence into the port; several persons died of it along the waterfront; but still no heed was given. Many people whom it touched had died at various times; it was a thing to be expected. And so, ghostly and furtive and purposeful, the thing crept on its million feet, and took hold with its million hands. August came in, even hotter than July. Dock Creek, ill favored, filled with market sloops, threw up a steam; at low tide the accumulated filth in the city docks poured poison into the air; carcasses of animals rotted in the streets.
"Nine dead this week," said Christopher Dent. "Inflamed eyes, rough tongues, aching heads, hot skins, at first; then the whites of the eyes turned yellow, free bleeding at the nose, black vomit, and death in eight days with the body turned purple. 'Tis the Barbados monster come freshly among us."