Maid of the Mist Part 29

"Poor little things!" she said, stroking the soft fur.

"They were dead before they knew it.... Our lake ends there," he said, pointing it out to her from where they stood on top of the hummock.

"But the island goes on and on, all just the same as this as far as you can see."

"It looks very lonely ... but I like it," and she sat long, with her hands clasped round her knees, gazing out over the wandering yellow line of sandhills, and the slow-heaving seas which broke in white-fringed ripples along the beach.

"And you left no ties behind you there in England?" she asked suddenly, showing where her thoughts had been.

"No ties whatever. Friends in plenty, but nothing more. When my father died I was quite alone in the world."

She nodded fellow-feelingly, and they sauntered back in a somewhat closer intimacy of understanding and liking for one another.

x.x.x

Macro had had a good day out there, and returned in the best of humours with himself and as hungry as usual.

As he ate he enlarged on his finds, and when he had finished his supper he piled the fire with light sticks to make a blaze, and spread them out for Miss Drummond's inspection.

He had evidently lighted on the personal baggage of some person of quality. There were rings and brooches and pins and bracelets, of gold and silver, set with coloured stones, a couple of small watches beautifully chased and studded with gems, a small silver-mounted mirror all blackened with sea-water, two gold snuff-boxes with enamelled miniatures on the lids--quite a rich haul and very satisfactory to the craving of his spirit.

The Girl examined them all carefully, and Wulfrey, watching her quietly through the smoke of his pipe, thought she handled them somewhat gingerly and distastefully, and understood her feeling in the matter.

And now and again he caught also a glimpse in the mate's black eyes, as they rested on her, of that which she herself had felt and resented.

It might be only the unconscious continuation of the gloating proprietorial look with which he regarded his treasures, which still gleamed in his eyes when they rested on her as though she herself were but one more of them. But whatever it was it was not a pleasant look, and Wulfrey was not surprised at her discomfort under it. He was as devoutly glad that he was there as she could be. Alone with this wild riever, in whom the cross-strain of his wilder forebears was running to licence in its sudden emanc.i.p.ation from all life's ordinary shackles.... It would not bear thinking of. Yes, he was truly glad he was there. And then he remembered, with another grateful throb, that if he had not been there, neither would she have been. For the mate most a.s.suredly would never have brought her back to life.

"Some of these are of value," she was saying. "But they are rather pitiful to me.... Some dead woman has treasured them and she is gone.

Perhaps you came upon her skeleton out there.... But they are not all real stones----"

"And how can ye tell that now?" asked Macro gruffly.

"I can tell at once by the feel of them. That now"--pointing to a heavily-gemmed bracelet--"the emeralds are real, the rubies are real, but they are all small. The white stones are not diamonds, but very good imitations. They look almost as well, but they are not diamonds.

If they were that bracelet alone would be worth some hundreds of pounds."

"Deil take 'em! And you can tell that by feeling at 'em?"

"I can tell in a moment. You see I have handled many jewels--some of the finest in the world, and I have seen very many imitations of them."

"The deil ye have! How that?"

"I have lived among those to whom they belonged, and I am very fond of precious stones."

He went away to his own cabin and came back presently with a good-sized bundle done up in blue velvet, and opened it before her. Wulfrey was surprised at the extent of his treasure-trove. For these were only his most precious possessions. He knew that he had in addition considerable store of silver articles which he had been allowed to examine from time to time.

If Macro's idea had been to dazzle her with his riches he must have been disappointed. For she greeted the display with a depreciatory "T't--t't!"--and said presently, as she picked out a piece here and there for examination, "It looks like a peddler's pack.... And it makes me sad to think of those to whom they belonged...."

"They've no further use for them. And there's no telling who they belonged to. They're for any man's getting now," said Macro defensively.

"I suppose so. All the same ... For me--no!" with a most decided shake of the head.

"Are they good, or is there false ones among them too?"

"Many are good," she said, pa.s.sing them rapidly and somewhat distastefully under her delicate fingers, "but not by any means all....

You have laboured hard to acc.u.mulate so much."

"Harder than ever I worked in my life before, but it suits me fine."

"But what good is it all unless you can get away from here and turn it to some good use?"

"We'll talk of that when I've got all I want, mebbe."

"You are like a miser then, ever acc.u.mulating and loth to spend."

"Just that! Ye see I never had siccan a chance before,--nor many others either. Ye wouldna care for a ring or two, or mebbe a bracelet or a brooch?"

"Oh, I could not. It is good of you to offer, but ... no, I thank you.

They would always make me think of the skeletons out there. Poor things!"

"They don't hurt, and they're aye laughing as if 'twas all a rare joke," which made her s.h.i.+ver with discomfort and draw her blanket closer round her neck at the back.

"Well, well!" said he, with a hoa.r.s.e laugh, as he made up his bundle again. "Folks has queer notions. Ef 't 'adn't been for me----"

"And the Doctor," she interposed quickly.

"Ay--and the Doctor there----"

"I know," she cut him short, "and it is very much nicer to be sitting here by a warm fire than tumbling about on a mast out there. I appreciate it, I a.s.sure you."

Perhaps it was to restore the balance of his spirits, which had suffered somewhat from the discovery that his treasure was not all he had thought it, that made him apply himself more heartily than usual to the rum cask that night. By the Doctor's advice any water they drank from the brackish pools was mixed with a few drops of rum. Macro always saw to it that a cask was at hand, and he himself took but small risks as far as the water was concerned. But he could stand a heavy load, and as a rule it only made him sluggish and uncompanionable.

This night, however, as he sat dourly smoking, and taking every now and again a long pull at his handy pannikin, it seemed to set him brooding over things and at times he grew disputatious.

Miss Drummond had turned with obvious relief to the Doctor and said, "These things do not interest you?"

"As curiosities only, not intrinsically. I never had any craving for jewelry!"

"It is a feminine weakness, I suppose, though I have known men who outvied even the women in their display."

"We have simpler ways in the country, and more robust."

"Mebbe you're right, and mebbe you're wrong," growled Macro, as the result of his cogitations. "I d'n know, an' you d'n know, an' Doctor, he d'n know, an' none of us knows.... They're mebbe all right... What the deil wud folks want mixing bad stuff wi' good like that?"

"It is done sometimes to make a larger show, and sometimes as a matter of precaution," said Miss Drummond quietly. "Those who have valuable jewels are always in fear of having them stolen. They have imitations made, and wear them, and people believe they are the real ones. It is commonly done."

"An' is it a thief you wud call me for taking these?"

"These are dead men's goods and dead women's, and you do not know whose they were, so it is not stealing. But, for me, I do not like them."