XIX
THE FORWARD LIGHT
Dawn was just breaking over a sea that was like a caldron of half-cooled molten metal for its colorings when Van Dyck came to take his turn on the Andromeda's bridge, and he rated me soundly for not having called him earlier.
"It is one thing to be generous, and quite another to be a self-immolating ass," was one of the compliments he handed me. Then: "By a streak of luck, one of our Portuguese fishermen turns out to be a passable cook. Get below and you'll find breakfast of a sort waiting for you in the saloon. Fill up, and then go to bed and sleep until you've caught up with the procession."
Being by this time in a receptive mood on both counts, I obeyed the double injunction literally, and ten seconds after rolling, full-stomached, into the comfortable bunk in the stateroom which had been mine before the age of romance took us in hand, I was dead to the world and so continued while the clock-hands made a complete revolution, with some hour or so added thereto.
When I awoke it was pitch dark in the little stateroom cabin, and somebody was knocking at the door. It proved to be Fernando, the new cook, and he was telling me in broken English that he had my dinner on a tray, by which I was made to understand that I had slept past the regular dinner hour.
Turning out for a bath, a shave, and the first change of clothing that had been vouchsafed me in many a long day, I ate the hand-in dinner with the ravenous appetite of the half-famished, and fared forth. Stepping into the brightly lighted saloon, it was hard to realize that Pirates' Hope and all that it stood for in the lives of eighteen of us had ever existed.
If the mutineers had left any traces of their short reign in our dining saloon they had all been carefully expunged. At one of the sections of the divisible dining-table Mrs. Van Tromp, Aunt Mehitable, Madeleine Barclay's father and Ingerson were playing bridge. Through the open door of the smoking-room opposite I could see Major Terwilliger lounging at ease in the deepest wicker chair, with a glass and a bottle and the ingredients for mixing his favorite after-dinner beverage on the card table at his elbow. At another section of the divisible dining-table the professor and his wife were at work classifying a lot of leaves and roots gathered on the island.
Down the companion stair came the tinkle-tinkle of Billy Grisdale's mandolin to tell me that the younger members of the ship's company had already slipped back into the aforetime habit of whiling away the evenings under the after-deck awning. I smiled as I went forward to look for Van Dyck, and the smile wasn't as cynical as it might have been on the other side of the island avatar. The prompt rebound to the normal and the conventional was merely an example of human nature at its most resilient – and best.
Van Dyck was on the bridge, or, more strictly speaking, in the little chart room, pricking out the yacht's course with a pair of dividers, and one of the Provincetown loyalists was at the wheel.
"You, Dick?" Bonteck said, when I drifted in and took the stool across from him. "Had a good nap?"
"If I haven't, it wasn't your fault," I returned. "Whereabouts are we by this time?"
"Off the Venezuelan coast, and only a few hours run from La Guaira. It's the majority vote of the ship's company that we ought not to be cheated out of the best part of our winter cruise, and we'll put in at La Guaira and take a run up to Caracas while Goff is refitting the yacht and laying in stores. I hope that falls in with your notion."
I let my vote stand over until I could ask about Goff.
"Uncle Elijah isn't out of commission, then?"
"Uncle Elijah is made of better stuff than most of us younger fry. He'll be up and around in a day or so; wanted to get up to-day and take over his job, but I wouldn't let him. But how about you? Will the La Guaira stop fit in with your longings?"
"Admirably. There is a revived copper mining prospect about to be exploited near Aroa, and with your kind permission I'll quit you at La Guaira and run over to Tucacas. There's a railway from that port to Aroa, and I heard, while I was waiting for you in New Orleans, that there might be an opening for an American engineer."
"Um," he grunted, without looking up, "so you're planning to desert, are you?"
"If you call it desertion, yes. I know when I've had enough, Bonteck."
"I don't think you do," he said with a queer grimace. "But let that stand over for a minute or so. Don't you want to be brought up to date in the treasure-trove adventure? I should think you would."
"If there is anything remaining that I haven't seen and felt and tasted," I returned.
"There is," he chuckled. "As the older novelists would remark, the half has not been told. Item Number One is a small problem in arithmetic. You helped me dig up Madeleine's ransom, and you counted the pieces, didn't you?"
"I did."
"You'd be willing to go into court and swear that there were forty of the gold bars; no more and no less; wouldn't you?"
"I should."
"And we dug them all out – all there were in that particular spot, didn't we?"
"I thought we did."
"Good. So did I. Yet the fact remains that there are eighty-three gold bars safely stowed away in the yacht's fore-hold; forty of one kind and forty-three of another. How do you account for that?"
I laughed. "It simply means that Le Gros was more thorough than we were. He found your planting, as well as that of the Santa Lucia's crew."
"He did. But the double find was due to Goff's effort to gain time for us, rather than to the fat bandit's thoroughness. When we left Goff waiting for his recapture, the first thing he did was to heave the chunk of coral out of the way so that there wouldn't be any landmark. Then, when Le Gros and his men came, Goff pointed out first one place and then another, until he had them digging all over the glade. That is why they beat him so savagely; and it was after he was knocked out that they stumbled upon both hoards."
"Both in the same place?" I asked.
"Goff says they were not. He was just coming back to consciousness when they were starting to carry the stuff down to the beach. There were two heaps of it. In his battered condition Goff didn't realize the truth; he merely thought he was seeing double. Afterward, so he says, he got a crazy notion in his head that the pirates hadn't found my gold at all, and that it was up to him to find it. That was what he was trying to do when you went after him."
"I know," I said; "Are there any more knots in the tangle?"
"Just one. When I went below last night to turn in, Billy Grisdale was waiting for me with tears in his eyes; said he'd lost all his hopes of heaven, and begged me to turn back to the island and let him have men enough to go ashore and dig some more in the gold plantation – that we were leaving Edie's dowry behind. I asked him what he meant, and he told me. He and Edie had been the first to take fire when I told the old story of the Spanish treasure ship, and they had gone about looking for landmarks and digging haphazard in one place and another."
"And, of course, they stumbled upon the chunk of coral, rolled it away, and dug under it," I filled in, recalling instantly what Billy had said to me about buried treasure and the ownership thereof on the night of Ingerson's attempted suicide.
"You've said it. Naturally, it was my planting that they uncovered – not the Spaniards', but never having so much as heard of my earlier visit to the island, there was nothing to make them suspect that it was not the Santa Lucia hoard that they had unearthed. Their first impulse was to run back to camp and shout the good news; but the cannier second thought prevailed. They reburied the stuff in the hole they had made, marked the place as well as they could – but not with the chunk of coral they had rolled aside, – and came away and left it, meaning to part with their secret only when a rescue ship should come along."
"What did you tell Billy?"
He grinned. "I took him into the fore-hold and showed him the pile of gold bars. As you would imagine, he was paralyzed when he counted and found there were eighty-three of them. 'There were forty-three – I'm sure there were only forty-three,' he kept saying over and over."
"Wait a minute," I interposed; "you are going too fast for me. Are you asking me to believe that it was only by chance that they rolled the piece of coral over to the exact spot where, we may suppose, it originally stood – marking the place of the Santa Lucia burial?"
"Chance and nothing else – excepting, perhaps, it may have rolled more easily that way than any other. It was Goff and I who moved it in the first place, you remember, when we took it to mark our gold grave."
"Now we may come back to Billy," I said. "What more did you tell him?"
"What could I tell him, save to hint that the Spaniards might have split their treasure and buried it in two places? – that, and to josh him a bit for having stopped too soon in his digging venture?"
"Then you told him that the remaining forty pieces belong to Madeleine?"
"I did; I have told them all. She found it, and it is hers. More than that, I have taken Jack Grey into my confidence in the matter of Barclay's shortage in his guardian accounts, and he will see to it that the Vancourt trust fund is made whole again."
"But, see here," I protested; "that is your quarter million that Billy and Edie are making off with!"
He laughed boyishly.
"I'm robbed," he declared; "Held up and cleaned out in the house of my friends. I couldn't claim the stuff if I wanted to – without giving the whole snap away. But I don't mean to claim it. It is going to be put right where it will do the most good, Dick – which it wasn't going to be, if my romantic plot had worked out as it was planned. If Madeleine had found my money, I should never have been able to look her straight in the eyes again – never in this world. You know I shouldn't. That was the weak detail I told you about. But what she did find is her own, her very own, you see; and mine goes to the two kiddies. Billy's father couldn't stake him, neither now nor two or three years hence, when these two babies will take things into their own hands and get married, money or no money. And with another of her girls due to marry a poor man, Mrs. Van Tromp would be in despair."
"Another of her girls – you mean Beatrice?" I asked, dry-lipped.
"Sure thing. Jerry's a pauper; or if he isn't quite that now, he will be when Major Terwilliger's last will and testament is read."
"But Conetta!" I gasped. "He is promised to her, Bonteck."
"Is he?" he said; and that is all he did say.
"Isn't he?" I demanded.
"How should I know? You'd better go and ask him or her – or both of them."
For a flitting instant I found myself desperate enough to do that very thing; but I, too, had suffered my sea change. Curiously enough the hotheaded impulse died within me before I could rise from my seat on the three-legged stool.
"Well, why don't you?" Van Dyck inquired satirically, meaning, I supposed, why didn't I go and make a fool of myself to the two people in question. Then: "What has come over you, Richard? Have you lost all of that fiery impetuosity that used to make you the worry of your friends, and put the fear of God into your enemies?"
It wasn't worth while to answer the gibe. I had other and better things to think of just then. Mellowing things.
"I know now why you dragged me in on this winter cruise, Bonteck," I said, humbly enough. "In the goodness of your heart you thought Conetta and I might be able to bridge the three-year gap and come together again. It was a kindly thought, and I shall always remember it. It wasn't your fault that the chance came too late. Don't you want me to take your trick here and let you go down to the others? True, Ingerson was at the bridge table when I came through, but he may not stay there."
"Ingerson is out of it," he said shortly. "He leaves us at La Guaira, to take the regular steamer for Havana and home."
"Nevertheless, my offer holds good. Give me the course and I'll relieve you."
"Later on, perhaps; the night is yet young. Just now, you'll be wanting to get Conetta and Jerry together so you can fire that question of yours at them. Better toddle along and have it over with, while the thing is fresh in your mind."
I turned to go, but at the door of the chart-room I paused to give him his due.
"You are a kindly sort of villain, after all, Bonteck," I said. "But how about the little experiment in the humanities that was at the bottom of all these things that have happened to us? Did it turn out as you expected it would? Are we worse than you feared – or better than you hoped?"
"Neither, Dick," he returned quite soberly. "We are all pretty much the same, I guess; brothers and sisters under the skin; just men and women 'of like passions'. I think I've known it as well as I needed to, all along, but it suited my humor to pose as a – a – "
"As a pragmatic ass," I snorted, helping him out. "Whenever you are tempted to bray again – "
"I'll just think back a few lines and remember this little Caribbean slip-up," he laughed. "But don't let me keep you. I know you are perishing to go and stick pins into poor old Jerry and Conetta."
That final remark of his was as far as possible from the truth; so far, indeed, that, upon leaving the bridge, I descended to the main deck by way of the forward ladder for the express purpose of keeping out of the way of the group under the awning on the after-deck lounge.
Since the Andromeda was now quite short-handed, the forward deck was deserted by all save a single man at the bow. I crossed to the port rail and stood for a time looking out upon the starlit sea and listening to the sibilant song of the yacht's sharp cutwater as it sheared its way through the gently heaving seas.
I had not been talking merely for effect in telling Bonteck that I should leave the yacht at La Guaira. On all accounts it seemed only the just and decent thing to do. Now that I came to think of it soberly, it seemed quite possible that my presence in the yacht party might have been the provoking cause of Jerry Dupuyster's disloyalty, or apparent disloyalty, to Conetta. He knew that we had once been engaged, and while there had been no more than fellow-passenger intimacy on the cruise, we had been together more or less on the island.
Though it was removed by the better part of the length of the ship, the tinny tinkle of Billy's mandolin was still audible, and presently there were voices joining in a rollicking college song; John Grey's clear tenor, Alicia Van Tromp's rich contralto, and even the professor's bass. It seemed incredible that the reaction from our late privations could have swept us all so swiftly back to the ordinary and the commonplace; and yet the fact remained: a fact demonstrating beyond all question the irresistible impulse in the normal human being to revert quickly to the usual and the accustomed.
Perhaps it was the reflective mood to which this philosophizing vein led that made me insensible of Conetta's approach. At any rate, I had no warning; I was still supposing that she was with the others on the after-deck when I felt her touch on my arm.
"You?" I said.
"Yes, me," she admitted, with the cheerful disregard for grammar which usually marked her flippant moods. "What are you doing up here, all by yourself?"
"What should I be doing? But if you really want to know, I'm gazing out toward the country where I'm likely to spend the next few years of my life – Venezuela."
"Yes," she said quite calmly. "I've just been up on the bridge with Bonteck. He told me you were going to bury yourself again in the South American wilds." Then, with what seemed to be a tinge of mocking malice: "Is it the Castilian princess? – but no; you told me she is married, didn't you?"
"No," I returned crabbedly; "it's you, this time, Conetta. I don't want to be on the same side of the earth with you when you marry Jerry Dupuyster."
She laughed as though I had said something humorous. "Jerry!" she scoffed. "Where are your eyes, Dickie Preble? Don't you see that I haven't the littlest chance in the world in that quarter? I should think you might."
"That is all right," I retorted. "I'll have a thing or two to say to Jerry before I quit this neat little ship at La Guaira!"
"Please don't!" she pleaded.
"Don't tell Jerry where to head in, you mean?"
"No; I didn't mean that. I mean please don't slip back, like all the rest of us have. Don't you know you were awfully dear while we were on the island? There were times – times when you were so patient and good with Aunt Mehitable – when I could have hugged you."
"Humph! I wonder what Jerry would have said to that?"
"Can't we leave Jerry out of it, just for a few minutes? But you were good, you know, and you were really making me begin to believe that your horrible temper, the temper that once made us both pay such a frightful price, was your servant instead of your master."
"Temper?" I said, fairly aghast at this bald accusation.
"Yes, temper. Have you been like everybody else – unable to recognize your own dearest failing? Don't you know that even as a little boy they used to say of you that you'd rather fight than eat? Are all red-headed men like that?"
"Never mind the other red-headed men," I returned. "What price did my temper make us pay? – and when?"
"I wonder if you went through it all without knowing – without realizing?" she said musingly. "Do you remember one night when you were taking Aunt Mehitable and me to the theater and some lobby lounger made a remark that you didn't like?"
"Yes, I remember it. I would have killed the beast if they hadn't pulled me off him. That remark was made about you, Conetta."
"I know. But you – you scandalized poor Aunt Mehitable. She began to say, right then, that I could never hope to have a happy married life with a man who had such an ungovernable temper. Wasn't it more or less true, Dick?"
Back of the island period and its tremendous revelations I should probably have said that it wasn't true. But now I only asked for better information.
"Once upon a time your aunt made two wills; made one, and revoked it with another within a week. Was that done to find out how much I would stand for?"
"I – I'm afraid it was." She admitted it reluctantly.
"Since it is all dead and buried long ago, you might tell me a little more about it. What she said to me was that she had heard of the loss of my property, and that she thought it was only fair to tell me that, under the terms of her will, you wouldn't inherit anything but a small legacy. She added that, of course, under such conditions our marriage was out of the question; that the only thing for me to do was to set you free."
"What did you say to her?"
"I don't remember. I probably raved like a maniac."
"You did. Miss Stebbins, the secretary, was in the library alcove, and she took short-hand notes. It was terrible, Dick. You must have been quite mad to say such things as you said to Aunt Mehitable."
"I was mad. Look at it from my side for a moment, if you can. I had just heard of the smash in the Western mines, and right upon the heels of that I was calmly asked to give you up. Did she show you the short-hand notes?"
"She did, after you had vanished without saying a word to me or even writing a line to tell me what had become of you. She did it to prove what she had said many times before – that your ferocious temper would make it impossible for any peaceable person to live with you."
"And you – what did you do?"
"What could I do? I had to go on living; one has to do that in any case. And after a time – "
"After a time, Jerry stepped in. I'm not blaming anybody, Conetta, dear. If Jerry would only break away from Beatrice Van Tromp and treat you as he ought to treat the woman he is going to marry, I wouldn't say a word."
She turned away, and for the length of time that it took the Andromeda to sheer through three of the long Caribbean swells she was silent. Then, as if she were speaking to the wide expanse of sea and starry sky: "It would be a tragedy if Jerry should break away from Beatrice. They have been engaged for ever and ever so long."
"What!" I exclaimed. "And you've known it all the time?"
"I think you are the only one who hasn't known it."
"But you said you and Jerry – "
"No," she interrupted coolly, "I didn't say it. I merely let you go on believing what you seemed to want to believe."
"But you did say that Jerry had asked you."
"That was a long time ago; and I think he did it only because his uncle told him to."
Slowly the incredible thing battered its way into my brain. Conetta was free; free, and she hadn't been any better able to forget than I had. I slipped an arm around her.
"It's an awful gap – three years; could you – do you suppose we could bridge it – and let Aunt Mehitable make another will, if she wants to?"
Just then, Bonteck, or whoever had the wheel, must have let the Andromeda fall off a bit. There was a plunge, a splash, and the spray of the curling bow wave showered us both. She let me wipe her face with my handkerchief, and then put it up to be kissed.
"There has never been any gap, Dick, dear," she said softly. "I – I guess I'm just a silly little one-love fool. I've just been waiting – and waiting.. and Aunt Mehitable.. she's sorry, dear; she's been sorry ever since that dreadful day three years ago when she made you swear at her and call her a mercenary old harridan.."
Time being the merest abstraction in such circumstances, it might have been either minutes or hours after this that the tubular chime which answered for a ship's bell on the Andromeda began to strike. Conetta counted, and as the last note was dying away she chanted happily:
"Eight bells; the forward light is shining bright, and all's well! Kiss me again, Dickie, dear, and we'll go and find Aunt Mehitable – if she hasn't gone to bed."