Читать книгу Douchard's Island - Aidan de Brune - Страница 3

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"THAT chart's been altered!"

Matthew Bowman, master of the barque Lilith, spoke with certainty.

"For what reason?" The girl, seated in the steamer chair, under the awning, asked curiously. She glanced, as she spoke, at the third member of the party, a tall, lean, athletic-looking man, aged about twenty-five years.

"Can't say, missie." Bowman turned again to a perusal of the chart. "It's a rough thing, anyhow, but there's no doubt of the alterations. Two hands have been engaged on this."

"Then we may take it that the chart is not authentic?" the girl, Grace Dormer, asked regretfully. Her large grey eyes were staring out over the wide harbour in which the barque swung on to the tail of a lazy tide. Away to the south, on a high promontory, stood a long, low stone building, of some age, surrounded by a mass of greenery, amid which showed carefully tended lawns. A little sigh escaped her lips.

"I'm not saying that, Miss Grace." The old sailor looked up, with a smile on his bearded lips. "There's many a chart comes into the hands of landsmen that's been through three or four hands, all of them adding something to it. Then it has been cast on one side and been lost. Yet, it was..."

"The experiences of several people," Frank Dormer spoke languidly.

Three years senior to his sister, there was still a remarkable resemblance between them. He glanced at her quizzically. "In spite of what Captain Bowman says, Grace, I think we'll have to say goodbye to our hopes."

"Hopes?" The seaman rose from his seat and placed the chart on the girl's knees. "Hopes of what, young feller? You said nothing when you came on board except that you had found that piece of paper among your uncle's things, and wondered what it was."

"There we were wrong, captain," the girl answered, regretfully. "But we...we had hopes...and...were afraid."

"Afraid of what?" Bowman turned swiftly. A short, squat man with a long, lean body and thighs and legs of enormous thickness, he yet moved with panther-like smoothness. His arms were long, reaching well towards his knees when he let them hang loose. For that reason he usually stood with his thumbs hooked in his belt. His head was round, set on a short, thick neck, mostly covered with grey hair, worn rather long. What could be seen of his complexion was baked almost black from long exposure to southern seas. From above a thin, well-hooked nose, a pair of eyes, surprising in their keenness, stared.

The girl blushed and looked down at the chart resting on her knees, where the seaman had placed it. For a moment she hesitated, but before she could speak, Frank interposed.

"Grace is right, Captain Bowman. We should have told you. There's evidence—not much of it, true, but it's straight evidence—that there's—"

"Treasure?"

A light lit in the strange blue eyes of the seaman.

"Treasure, yes; of some nature," the young man answered gravely. "Exactly what it is we can't guess. But that chart means something."

Again the swift cat-like movement of the man. He caught up the chart from the girl's knees, peering at it closely for some seconds.

"There's nothing on it indicating treasure." he observed after a time. "Except—"

He paused, turning the paper in his hand. "Where's the letter that was attached to it?"

"Here, captain." Grace spoke. She opened her handbag and handed the man a piece of notepaper, yellow and torn. "You will notice that the pin that bound letter and chart is still in the paper."

"And that's all you've to go on?"

"Plenty, isn't, it, captain?" Frank smiled.

"Plenty!" Bowman snorted, disdainfully. "What do you call that for a clue? There ain't one in all that jumble of words. What's more this ain't been written by a sailor."

"Nor the chart drawn by one," Grace laughed, "We are children of the sea, captain, although we live on land. You know us well; you have known our family since you were a child. Do you think that chart puzzled us for 24 hours?"

"I don't, Miss Grace." The keen blue eyes twinkled. "You've sat on my knees when your legs showed longer than the rest of you, and learned to splice your first rope, held in my old fingers. I knew your uncle, Major Dormer—and a fine old fellow he was, in spite of the fact that he chose to fight on land instead of on the Dormers' natural element. I knew your father—a sailor—as fine a man as ever trod board; and your mother, a real sweet sailor's lady. That chart didn't puzzle you one moment—nor your brother. If it had, I'd have keel-hauled the pair of you."

"An old threat, captain." Frank laughed.

"Pity I never carried it out." The bearded lips broke into a rumble of laughter. "I've threatened it often enough—and only got saucy looks in exchange. Well, come on, what's the story? I'm safe, you know that."

"We found that chart among uncle's things." Grace spoke after a moment's hesitation. "Of course, we knew that it was not a seaman's chart, but we wondered. It certainly is a chart of an island, but there's not a mark on it to show where that island is situated We—we think—"

She stopped, undecided, and then continued, with a glance at her brother. "We think it belonged to dad."

"And that your uncle obtained it from your father?" the seaman asked.

"We think so," Grace answered.

"Well?"

"The chart was in uncle's desk."

Frank took up the tale. "You know dad left everything he possessed to Grace and me, under Uncle Robert's trusteeship. When uncle died he left a similar will. He left Grace and me all his property. Our father's trust had expired, and I came into my share of the joint inheritances. For the time, Grace is under my trusteeship—that is, until next March, when she becomes twenty-one."

"What's that got to do with the chart?" Bowman asked brusquely.

"Quite a lot," Frank smiled quietly. He was used to the old seaman's manner. "I was trying to explain how we found the chart and believed that it had belonged to dad. You know, he was always in touch with sailors from an over the world. They used to come to him—"

"Begging."

"What of that?" Grace chimed in. "Dad was a rich man and a sailor, and he loved sailors."

"If he was rich, then why are you worrying your pretty head about that scrap of paper? Do you want more money?"

"No." The brother and sister exchanged glances. "We want adventure."

"And you think you'll get it through that?"

"Frank thinks so."

"And you?"

"I hope so."

"Yet you have only the drawing of an island, without even a point of the compass, a latitude or longitude, to identify it."

"There's the mystery."

The girl swung her legs down to the deck and stood up, a tall, lithe figure in a short, straight frock that revealed slim legs up to the knees. She clasped her bare arms at the back of her neck and stretched.

Bowman looked up at her, a strange expression in his eyes. Here was the girl he had taken from her mother's arms, a mite a few days old. Again and again, as he returned to port from his wanderings over the waters of the world, he had resumed his comradeship with her, watching her grow from a toddler, through adolescent school-days, to a really beautiful young woman. Always he had concealed his feelings—his adoration of this beautiful young creature he had watched grow to womanhood. He had thought of her as his child—the child of a wanderer who had never settled to the home life, but continually dreamed of.

"Well, what of the mystery?" The captain spoke shortly.

"That." She pointed to the chart, now in the seaman's hand. "And this letter."

"The letter—a lot of gibberish," Bowman snorted. "Thought you had more sense than to be taken in by that sort of thing."

"Uncle Matt! Did you read that letter?"

"Course I did. You gave it me for that purpose." Bowman faced the girl angrily. "Do you think I'd cut you off anything that'd benefit you two? Not on your life, Missie Grace. I'd go off this deck and rake the bottom of this harbour if I thought it'd do you any good..."

"Of course you would, old dear." The girl linked her arm in the old seaman's. "I haven't forgotten my first sweetheart to that extent. Now, sit down there and listen. I'm going to read that letter to you. If you don't listen—that's mutiny."

"On board me own ship!" Bowman grinned. "All right, me girl, fire away."

Grace held out her hand for the letter, which her brother held. Standing before the two men she read it slowly and gravely:

"Dear friend.

"There is not much hope of getting away alive. Been here eleven weeks and tucker's gone. Water is drying up. Someone'll find this one day and send it to you. Can hang on until November 5th. You count from there and you will know when I passed out. Not chancing things. All I write is for you to take the trip and put me away respectable. Remember, I don't ask much that ain't reasonable. It'll pay you all, that trip. Don't you fail. Come here and gather what I place today. It's not much, perhaps, but it's yours.

"Louis."

"There!" The girl looked up from the paper. "What do you make of that?"

"Nothing. Just nothing." Captain Bowman laughed shortly. "I know what you're thinking. That someone found buried treasure and left that note for your father, as a guide."

"What else can it be?" The girl spoke, impatiently.

"He writes he's short of water and food—'tucker' he calls if, and no seaman ever used that word, to my knowledge. I guess be was crazy for water and began seeing things. Anyhow, take an old salt's tip and let it fade out."

The girl stamped impatiently and walked to the side of the vessel. For a moment she looked down at the rippling water, then turned and faced the men. "Tell him the rest, Frank." She spoke more quietly now, yet a little pucker still showed between her brows.

"It isn't much." The young man spoke with a short laugh. "We found that note on Saturday—Sis and I. Sunday, someone got in at the library window and searched the place. Funny thing, didn't take a thing, although there are quite a number of valuable articles around the room. Monday, a seafaring man came and asked for a packet of papers Uncle Robert was taking care of for him. He couldn't describe the packet and we advised him to go to Mr. Kempton, our solicitor. He didn't. Grace had the curiosity to ring Kempton up, and he said he hadn't seen any seafaring man. Wednesday night, the house was entered again. It was then that Sis told me that she had had a feeling all that day that she was being followed—and when I came to think of it, I remember seeing a strange-looking fellow continually throughout the day. Then..."

"That's to-day," Grace interrupted. "I saw the man at the back door, talking to our cook. She said he had called to beg tucker, but added that he had asked quite a lot of questions about Frank and me. Frank said that he saw a man hanging about the road outside the gate, and..." She paused, glancing at a nearby lifeboat on the deck.

Frank followed the direction of her glance. He hesitated a moment, then sprang towards the boat.

A man rose to his feet from the far side of the boat, hesitating. Frank sprang forward, and the man turned and dived into the harbour.

Captain Bowman uttered a bellow of rage. In a couple of jumps he was at the chart-room door. He emerged, armed with a formidable revolver and ran to the side of the ship, shooting at the black head bobbing in the water. The man dived. When he came to the surface again he was some distance from the ship—out of range of the captain's weapon.

"What the hell!" The seaman was spluttering with anger. "And on my ship! I'll ..." He caught Grace's laughing eyes and subsided. "Beg pardon, missie. Shouldn't have sworn before you." Then, as if anxious to change the subject. "Say, where's that letter and chart?"

The girl held them up. Bowman took them and for some time studied them in silence; the girl and young man watched him.

"Make anything of them, captain?" Frank asked.

"Not a line. But, I'm going to." He hesitated. "You bet your sweet life. After what's happened, Captain Bowman's going to find out all about Douchard's Island."

"Douchard's Island?" The girl questioned, excitedly. "Where do you get that name, Uncle Matt?"

"'Cause it's there." The stubby forefinger stabbed at the letter. "And call me a fool for not remembering. But your talk sort of put me off. I never thought of that man."

"What man?" Grace shook the seaman's arm, impatiently, in her excitement. "What man are you talking about?"

"Louis Douchard."

Bowman laughed. "Of course, Louis Douchard! Why didn't I think of him before? But it's years since your father came to me with Douchard—more years than I care to remember."

"Who was Louis Douchard?" Grace questioned.

"Hanged if I know." Bowman scratched his head. "S'far as I remember he was a tall, thin, loose-shanked fellow with a mop of red hair, turning grey. Seemed to think a lot of your father; couldn't keep his eyes off him and..."

He paused and took a few turns along the deck. At length, he came back to where the young people were impatiently awaiting him. "You'll have to give me time to think this out, missie," he said, patting the hand Grace laid on his arm. "There's quite a number of years intervening and I've get to search back. Give me time. That's all I ask. Time, and I'll tell yon all I know."

"But..." Grace hesitated. Then: "Who was Louis Douchard?"

"I've told you; I can't remember. All I know is—that he wasn't a sailor."