Poison Island Part 36

I calculated that by working my way along for fifty yards between them and the rock-face I should gain an opening which, observed from below, had seemed to promise me an excellent view of the next beach.

But they hung so heavily that I found myself struggling in an almost impenetrable thicket; and when at length I gained the opening, and drew breath, above the splash of waves on the beach I heard a sound which caused me to huddle back like a rabbit surprised in the mouth of its burrow.

Some three yards from my hiding the bank of low cliff bounding the beach shelved upward and inland in a stretch of short turf, and from the head of this slope came the thud of footsteps--of heavy footsteps descending closer and closer.

I drew back under the creepers, and held my breath. Between their thick woven strands my eyes caught only, to the right, a twinkle of the sea; in front, a yard or two of white s.h.i.+ngle glittering beyond the green shade; and, five seconds later, this patch was blotted out as two men plunged past my spyhole. They walked abreast, and carried a box between them. I could hear them panting, so closely they pa.s.sed.

They halted on the edge of the bank.

"The boat's all right," said one; and I heard him jump down upon the s.h.i.+ngle. It seemed to me that I knew his voice. "Here, pa.s.s down the blamed thing . . . d--n it all, man!"

"_I can't!_" whimpered the other. "S'help me, Bill, I can't. . . .

I'm not used to it, and I ain't got the nerve."

"Nerve? An' you call yourself a seaman! An' a plucky lot you boasted the night we signed articles. . . . Nerve? Why, you was the very man to find fault with him. 'Couldn't stand his temper another day,' you said; and must do something desprit. Those were your very words."

"I know it. I didn't think--"

"Oh, to h.e.l.l with your 'didn't think'! The man's dead, an' cryin'

won't bring him back. Much you'd welcome him, if he _did_ come back!"

"_Don't_, Bill!"

"Now, look you here, Jim Lucky! Stand you up, and help me get this lot in the boat, and the boat to sea. After that you can lie quiet and cry yourself sick. . . . You'll be all right to-morrow, fit as a fiddle. I've been in this business before, and seen how it takes men, even the strongest. It's the sight o' blood; but the stomach gets accustomed. . . . By this day week you'll be lively as a flea in a rug, and lookin' forward to drivin' in your carriage-an'-pair.

I promise you that; but what you've to do at this moment is to stand up, and help me get down the boat. For if _he's_ anywhere on this island, G.o.d help the pair of us!"

"_He!_" quavered Jim Lucky.

"I shouldn't wonder."

"But you told me he was dead!"

"Did I? Well, perhaps I did. That was to keep your spirits up.

But now I don't mind tellin' you that I'm not sure. He _ought_ to be dead by this time; but 'tis a question if the likes of him ever die. He's own cousin to the devil, I tell you; and if he's anywhere alive, like as not he's watching us at this moment."

Whatever this meant, it appeared to rouse Jim Lucky, and start him in a panic. I heard him sob as he helped to lower their burden upon the beach. All this time they had been standing immediately beneath me, and I dared not lift my head for a look. But now, as they went staggering down the beach, I parted the creepers, and stared in their wake. They carried a heavy sea-chest between them, but my eyes were neither for the chest nor for Jim Lucky, but for his companion, the man he called Bill.

I knew him before I looked; and as I had recognized his voice, so now I recognized his narrow, foxy head, and sloping shoulders.

It was Aaron Gla.s.s.

The two men carried the chest along at a rate that perhaps came easily enough to Jim Lucky, who was a young giant of a seaman, but was astonis.h.i.+ng for a thin, windlestraw of a man such as Gla.s.s.

He ploughed his way across the sands like a demon, and had scarcely set down the chest, a little above the water's edge, before he was tugging at the boat. I heard him call to Lucky to help, and the pair heave-y-hoe'd together as they strained at the gunwale to lift her and run her down.

From this ridge, as yet, came no sign.

Presently from the boat--they had pulled her down to the water, and were both stooping over her with their shoulders well inside, busy in arranging her bottom board--I heard a fearful oath; an oath that rose in a scream, as the two men faced each other, scared, incredulous.

"_Scuttled, by G.o.d!_"

It was Gla.s.s who screamed it out, and with the sound of it a host of sea-birds rose from the neighbouring rocks, whitening the sky.

But Jim Lucky cast up both hands and ran.

"Stop, you fool! Stop!"

I think the poor creature had no notion whither he ran; that he was merely demented. But, in fact, he headed straight for the ridge, not turning his head. Twice Gla.s.s called after him; then, in a sudden fury, whipped out a pistol and fired. For the moment I supposed that he had missed, for the man ran for another six strides without seeming to falter, then his knees weakened, and he pitched forward on his face.

I believe, on my word, that Gla.s.s had either fired in blind pa.s.sion or with intent to stop the man rather than to kill him. He stood and stared; and, while the pistol yet smoked in his hand, I saw Dr.

Beauregard step forth from his shelter, step delicately past the corpse, and raise his musket; and heard his clear, resonant voice call out--

"Both hands up, Mr. Gla.s.s, if you please!"

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

WE COME TO DR. BEAUREGARD'S HOUSE.

Gla.s.s's arm fell limp by his side, as though Dr. Beauregard had actually pulled the trigger and winged him. He turned half-about as the pistol slid from his fingers. He gave no cry; only there leached us a loose, throttling sound such as a steam whistle makes before fetching its note. It came to us in the lull between two waves that broke and raised up the sands to ripple round his feet.

"_Both_ hands up, Mr. Gla.s.s!"

Dr. Beauregard advanced a step.

But instead of lifting his arms, the man curved them before him, and held them so, as if to protect his treasure, while he sank on his knees beside the box. His face was yellow with terror.

"You fool!" The Doctor, still holding him covered, advanced step by step to the box, and bent over it, staring down at him. The rest of us--that is to say, Miss Belcher, Captain Branscome, and I--under I know not what compulsion, followed and came to a halt a few paces behind him. Standing so, I felt, rather than saw, that Plinny and Mr. Goodfellow, attracted by the report of the pistol, were peering at us over the ridge of rocks on the right.

"You fool!" Dr. Beauregard repeated, and suddenly dropped the b.u.t.t of his musket upon the loose cover of the chest.

"You fool!" said he, a third time, and tearing aside a splintered board, dipped his hand and held it up full of sparkling stones.

Opening his fingers slowly, he let a few jewels rattle back upon the heap, and held out a moderate fistful towards the cowering Gla.s.s.

"Did you actually suppose, having proved me once, that I would suffer such a common cut-throat as you to march off with my treasure?

Look up at me, man! I charge you with having murdered Coffin, even as you have just murdered that other poor blockhead who trusted you."

He nodded sideways--but still keeping his eyes upon Gla.s.s--towards the body, which lay as it had fallen. "Answer me. Are you guilty?

Yes or no?"

The man's mouth worked, but his tongue crackled in his mouth like a parched leaf.

"Yes, I know what you would say; that you had some excuse--that Coffin in his time had stuck at nothing to be quit of you; that he sold you to the press-gang; that through Coffin you spent eight, ten--how many years?'--in the war-prisons; that he believed you dead, as he had taken pains to kill you. Well, we'll grant it. As between two scoundrels I'll not trouble to weigh the rights against the wrongs. But look at this boy, here. You recognize him, hey? I charge you with having murdered his father, Major Brooks, as you murdered Coffin. You have run up a pretty long account, my friend, for so clumsy a performer; but I think you have reached the end of it."

Aaron Gla.s.s looked at me and blinked. Terror of the man confronting him had twisted his dumb mouth into a kind of grin horrible to see.

It lifted his lip, like the snarl of a dog, over his yellow teeth.

Dr. Beauregard laughed softly.

"And all for what? For an imperfect chart--and for _these!_"

He thrust his hand close up to Gla.s.s's face, and spread his fingers wide, letting the gems drip between them, and rain back into the treasure-chest. "What's wrong with them? That's what you'd be asking--eh?--if your poor tongue could find the words. Well, only this, my friend--yes, look well at them--that I hid them myself, and every one of them is false."

"False!" I could see Gla.s.s's mouth at work, his lips forming to the echo of the word, as it struck across his terror like a whip. But he achieved no articulate sound.