I had made up my mind to see Carmen, if he still lived; and finding at Chagres a schooner bound for La Guayra I took passages in her for myself and Ramon, all the more willingly as the captain proposed to put in at Curaçoa. It occurred to me that Van Voorst, the Dutch merchant in whose hands I had left six hundred pounds, would be a likely man to advise me as to the disposal of my diamonds—if he also still lived.
Rather to my surprise, for people die fast in the tropics, I did find the old gentleman alive, but he had made so sure of my death that my reappearance almost caused his. The pipe he was smoking dropped from his mouth, and he sank back in his chair with an exclamation of fear and dismay.
“Yor need not be alarmed, Mynheer Van Voorst,” I said; “I am in the flesh.”
“I am glad to see you in the flesh. I don’t believe in ghosts, of course. But I happened to be in what you call a brown study, and as I had heard you were shot long ago on the llanos you rather startled me, coming in so quietly—that rascally boy ought to have announced you. But I was not afraid—not in the least. Why should one be afraid of a ghost! And I saw at a glance that, as you say, you were in the flesh. I suppose you have come to inquire about your money. It is quite safe, my dear sir, and at your disposal, and you will find that it has materially increased. I will call for the ledger, and you shall see.”
The ledger was brought in by a business-looking young man, whom the old merchant introduced to me as his nephew and partner, Mynheer Bernhard Van Voorst.
“This is Mr. Fortescue, Bernhard,” he said, “the English gentleman who was dead—I mean that I thought he was dead, but is alive—and who many years ago left in my hands a sum of about two thousand piasters. Turn to his account and see how much there is now to his credit?”
“At the last balance the amount to Mr. Fortescue’s credit was six thousand two hundred piasters.”22. At the time in question, “piaster” was a word often used as an equivalent for “dollar,” both in the “Gulf ports” and the West Indies.
“You see! Did I not say so? Your capital is more than doubled.”
“More than doubled! How so?”