"Got six of them," he whispered, with unholy mystery, through which his native frankness gaped out."Worth their weight in gold out there just now, the skipper says.Got a heap of rifles, too, and lots of ammunition.He's given me a share.This is better than the P.and O., and playing deck cricket with the passengers.I'd made up my mind already to chuck that, and go in for plantin' sugar, when Iran across the skipper.Wonderful chap, the skipper! I'll go and tell him.He's been out all night; only came aboard at four bells;having a nap now, but he won't mind that for you."Off he went.I wondered what there was in Zachary Pearse to attract a youngster of this sort; one of the customary twelve children of some country parson, no doubt-burning to shoot a few niggers, and for ever frank and youthful.
He came back with his hands full of bottles.
"What'll you drink? The skipper'll be here in a jiffy.Excuse my goin' on deck.We're so busy."And in five minutes Zachary Pearse did come.He made no attempt to shake hands, for which I respected him.His face looked worn, and more defiant than usual.
"Well, gentlemen?" he said.
"We've come to ask what you're going to do?" said Dan.
"I don't know," answered Pearse, "that that's any of your business."Dan's little eyes were like the eyes of an angry pig.
"You've got five hundred pounds of mine," he said; "why do you think I gave it you?"Zachary bit his fingers.
"That's no concern of mine," he said."I sail on Wednesday.Your money's safe.""Do you know what I think of you?" said Dan.
"No, and you'd better not tell me!" Then, with one of his peculiar changes, he smiled: "As you like, though."Dan's face grew very dark."Give me a plain answer," he said: "What are you going to do about her?"Zachary looked up at him from under his brows.
"Nothing."
"Are you cur enough to deny that you've married her?"Zachary looked at him coolly."Not at all," he said.
"What in God's name did you do it for?"
"You've no monopoly in the post of husband, Mr.Treffry.""To put a child in that positionD! Haven't you the heart of a man?
What d' ye come sneaking in at night for? By Gad! Don't you know you've done a beastly thing?"Zachary's face darkened, he clenched his fists.Then he seemed to shut his anger into himself.
"You wanted me to leave her to you," he sneered."I gave her my promise that I'd take her out there, and we'd have gone off on Wednesday quietly enough, if you hadn't come and nosed the whole thing out with your infernal dog.The fat's in the fire! There's no reason why I should take her now.I'll come back to her a rich man, or not at all.""And in the meantime?" I slipped in.
He turned to me, in an ingratiating way.
"I would have taken her to save the fuss--I really would--it's not my fault the thing's come out.I'm on a risky job.To have her with me might ruin the whole thing; it would affect my nerve.It isn't safe for her.""And what's her position to be," I said, "while you're away? Do you think she'd have married you if she'd known you were going to leave her like this? You ought to give up this business.
You stole her.Her life's in your hands; she's only a child!"A quiver passed over his face; it showed that he was suffering.
"Give it up!" I urged.
"My last farthing's in it," he sighed; "the chance of a lifetime."He looked at me doubtfully, appealingly, as if for the first time in his life he had been given a glimpse of that dilemma of consequences which his nature never recognises.I thought he was going to give in.Suddenly, to my horror, Dan growled, "Play the man!"Pearse turned his head."I don't want your advice anyway," he said;"I'll not be dictated to."
"To your last day," said Dan, "you shall answer to me for the way you treat her."Zachary smiled.
"Do you see that fly?" he said."Wel--I care for you as little as this," and he flicked the fly off his white trousers."Good-morning...!"
The noble mariners who manned our boat pulled lustily for the shore, but we had hardly shoved off' when a storm of rain burst over the ship, and she seemed to vanish, leaving a picture on my eyes of the mate waving his cap above the rail, with his tanned young face bent down at us, smiling, keen, and friendly.
......We reached the shore drenched, angry with ourselves, and with each other; I started sulkily for home.
As I rode past an orchard, an apple, loosened by the rainstorm, came down with a thud.
"The apples were ripe and ready to fall, Oh! heigh-ho! and ready to fall."I made up my mind to pack, and go away.But there's a strangeness, a sort of haunting fascination in it all.To you, who don't know the people, it may only seem a piece of rather sordid folly.But it isn't the good, the obvious, the useful that puts a spell on us in life.It's the bizarre, the dimly seen, the mysterious for good or evil.
The sun was out again when I rode up to the farm; its yellow thatch shone through the trees as if sheltering a store of gladness and good news.John Ford himself opened the door to me.
He began with an apology, which made me feel more than ever an intruder; then he said:
"I have not spoken to my granddaughter--I waited to see Dan Treffry."He was stern and sad-eyed, like a man with a great weight of grief on his shoulders.He looked as if he had not slept; his dress was out of order, he had not taken his clothes off, I think.He isn't a man whom you can pity.I felt I had taken a liberty in knowing of the matter at all.When I told him where we had been, he said:
"It was good of you to take this trouble.That you should have had to! But since such things have come to pass--" He made a gesture full of horror.He gave one the impression of a man whose pride was struggling against a mortal hurt.Presently he asked:
"You saw him, you say? He admitted this marriage? Did he give an explanation?"I tried to make Pearse's point of view clear.Before this old man, with his inflexible will and sense of duty, I felt as if I held a brief for Zachary, and must try to do him justice.
"Let me understand," he said at last."He stole her, you say, to make sure; and deserts her within a fortnight.""He says he meant to take her--"