Poison Island Part 32

Now, either I had spoiled Captain Branscome's temper for the day, or something in this speech of Miss Belcher's especially rasped it.

"But who is this man?" he demanded, in a sharp, authoritative voice.

Miss Belcher stepped back half a pace. I saw her chin go up, and it seemed to grow square as she answered him with a dangerous coldness.

"I beg your pardon. I thought I told you that he gave his name as Dr. Beauregard."

"You had no business, ma'am, to allow him on board the s.h.i.+p."

"No business?"

"No business, ma'am. I have just been having words with young Harry, here, over his disobedience this afternoon; but this is infinitely more serious. We are here to search for treasure. We no sooner drop anchor than a man visits us, who claims that the island is his.

This at once presupposes his claim upon any treasure that may be hidden upon it, and consequently that, as soon as he discovers our purpose, he will be our enemy. It follows, I should imagine, that of all steps the most fatal was to admit him on board to discover our weakness."

"Our weakness, sir?" asked Miss Belcher, carelessly, as though but half attending.

"Our weakness, ma'am; as it was doubtless to discover our weakness that he came."

"Now, I rather thought," murmured Miss Belcher, "that Miss Plinlimmon and I had spent a great part of this afternoon in impressing him with our strength."

"To be sure," pursued Captain Branscome, "with such a company as he found on board, he can scarcely have suspected a treasure hunt.

Still, when he does suspect it--as sooner or later he must--he will know our weakness."

"He could scarcely have dealt with us more frankly than he did, at any rate," said Miss Belcher, with an air of simplicity; "for he a.s.sured us he was alone on the island."

"And you believed him, ma'am?"

"I forget, sir, if I believed him; but he certainly knows that we are here in search of treasure, for I told him so myself."

Captain Branscome gasped. "You--you told him so?" he echoed.

"I did, and he replied that it scarcely surprised him to hear it, that of the few vessels which found their way to Mortallone, quite an appreciable proportion came with some idea of discovering treasure.

The proportion, he added, had fallen off of late years, and the most of them nowadays put in to water, but there was a time when the treasure-seekers threatened to become a positive nuisance.

He said this with a smile which disarmed all suspicion. In fact, it was impossible to take offence with the man."

But at this point Plinny, frightened perhaps at the warnings of apoplexy in Captain Branscome's face, laid a hand gently on Miss Belcher's arm.

"Are we treating our good friend quite fairly?" she asked.

Miss Belcher glanced at her and broke into a ringing laugh.

"You dear creature! No, to be sure, we are not; but from a child I always turned mischievous under correction. Captain Branscome, I beg your pardon."

"It is granted, ma'am."

"And--for I take you to be on the point of resigning, here and now--"

"Ma'am, you have guessed correctly."

"I am going to beg you to do nothing of the sort. No, I am not going to ask it only as a favour, but to appeal to your reason.

You think it extremely rash of me to have entertained this man and talked with him so frankly? Well, but consider. To begin with, if I had not told him that we were after the treasure, he would probably have guessed it; nay, I make bold to say that he guessed it already, for--I forgot to mention it--he knows Harry Brooks."

"Knows _me_, ma'am?" I cried out, as all the company turned and stared at me.

"He says so, and that he recognized you as you were sculling up the creek."

"Knows _me_?" I echoed. "But who on earth can he be, then? Not--not the man Aaron Gla.s.s, surely?"

"I was wondering," said Miss Belcher.

"But--but Aaron Gla.s.s wasn't a bit like this man, as you make him out; a thin, foxy-looking fellow, with sandy hair and a face full of wrinkles, about the middling height, with sloping shoulders--"

"Then he can't be Aaron Gla.s.s. But whoever he is, he knows you-- that's the important point--and pretty certainly connects you with the treasure. He didn't seem to have met Goodfellow before.

Well, now, if he lives alone here--which, I admit, is not likely--we ought to be more than a match for him. If, on the other hand, he has men at his call--and I ask your particular attention here, Captain-- it was surely no folly at all, but the plainest common sense, to admit him on board. He will go off and report that our s.h.i.+p's company consists of two middle-aged maiden ladies (I occupied myself with tatting a chair-cover while he conversed); a boy; Mr. Goodfellow (whatever he may have made of Goodfellow); and two gentlemen ash.o.r.e to whose mental and physical powers I was careful to do some injustice. You will pardon me, Captain, but I laid more than warrantable stress on your lameness; and us for you, Jack, I depicted you as a mere country b.o.o.by"--here Mr. Rogers bowed amiably--"and added by way of confirmation that I had known you from childhood.

He will go back and report all this, with the certain consequence that he and his confederates will mistake us for a crew of crack-brained eccentrics."

When she had done, the Captain stood considering for a moment, rubbing his chin.

"Yes," he admitted slowly, "there seems reason in that, ma'am; reason and method. But 'tis a kind of reason and method outside all my experience, and you must excuse me if I get the grip of it slowly.

I should like a good look at the man before saying more."

"As to that," answered Miss Belcher, "you won't have long to wait for it. He has invited us all ash.o.r.e to-morrow, for a picnic.

He charged me to say--if he did not happen to run against you as he was returning the c.o.c.kboat--that he would be at the creek-head punctually at nine-thirty to await us."

Two hours later Captain Branscome sent word for me to attend him in his cabin.

"I want to tell you, Harry Brooks," said the old man, turning away from me while he lit his pipe, "that I have been thinking over what happened this afternoon."

"I was in the wrong, sir."

"You were; and I am glad to hear you acknowledge it. Now, what I want to say is this. Had affairs gone in the least as I expected, I should have held you to 'strict service,' as we used to say on the old packets. I never tolerated a favourite on board, and never shall. But these ladies don't make a favourite of you; that's not the trouble. The trouble--no, I won't call it even that--is that you and they all cannot help taking the bit between your teeth. It don't appear to be your fault; you wasn't bred to the sea, and can't tumble to sea-fas.h.i.+ons. 'So much the worse,' a man might say. The plague of it is, I can't be sure; and after casting it up and down, I've determined to let you have your way."

"You don't mean, sir, that you're going to resign!" said I, confounded.

"No, I don't. Saving your objections, boy, I was elected captain, and it don't do away with my responsibility that I choose to let discipline go to the winds. If mischief comes I shall be to blame, because I might have stopped it but didn't."

I was silent. This should have been the time for me to tell what I had discovered that afternoon; of the graveyard and the two strange women. But shame tied my tongue. I saw that this n.o.ble gentleman, in imparting his thoughts to me, was really condescending to ask my pardon; and the injustice of it was so monstrous that I felt a delicacy in letting him know the extent of my unworthiness.

I temporized, and promised myself a better occasion.

"But are you quite sure, sir, that yours was not the wisest plan, after all?"

"The question is not worth considering," he answered. "My policy-- you would hardly call it a plan, for it wholly depended on circ.u.mstances--no longer exists. The ladies, you see, have forced my hand."

I forbore to tell him that if the ladies had forced his hand his accepting full responsibility was simply quixotic.

"She's a wonderful woman," said I, by way of filling up the pause.

"And so womanly!" a.s.sented Captain Branscome, to my entire surprise.