Читать книгу King of The Rocks - Ambrose Pratt - Страница 8

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WHEN Cuthbert Stone left Government House that night he visited, instead of his hotel, his yacht, hiring a waterman at Princes Steps to row him to the Dido; this in the vain hope to find rest there and peace from his thoughts.

For hours he tramped up and down the gleaming white decks of his beautiful vessel, but in spite of himself always thinking, thinking. The sailors one by one retired below to sleep, leaving only the usual night watch on deck; but Cuthbert heeded nothing, nor did he even notice the passing of time, so bitter were the fancies that possessed his brain.

In a painful vision he beheld himself bereft of the riches that had hitherto made life so pleasant a fruit to his palate; he beheld himself a pauper, deserted by his countless friends, stripped of his fair belongings, his palaces in Italy and Switzerland, his hotel in Paris, his house in London, his mansion in New York; he saw his yacht, the Dido, which he had had built for himself, perhaps the dearest loved of his possessions, in the hands of an unfeeling stranger. He saw himself, a laggard in the race of love, forced by the chances of a disastrous hour to fall back, conquered by lack of means, and allow some other to pluck the splendid flower he had destined for himself. Mara Hescombe had never appeared so beautiful or so utterly desirable to him as in that wretched time when, face to face with ruin and himself, he stretched forth his hands in lonely bitterness and cursed the folly which had led him, already rich beyond the dreams of avarice, to risk his all in the foolish search for more.

What wonder that his thoughts were sad? Every moment he grew more restless, more irritable, more completely miserable.

His eyes by chance at last lighted on a small dingey that swung loosely from its davits at the Dido's side only a few feet above the water. A sudden impulse seized him to indulge in violent exercise, in the hope that he might expel his persistent thoughts by ardent physical exertion.

Muttering an order to the watch, a few more moments saw him yards away from the yacht, speeding into the starlight darkness like a frantic spirit, his oars bending dangerously under the nervous strength of his arms. For an hour he worked ceaselessly like a veritable madman, but at length, spent and overcome by toil so strange and unaccustomed, panting he paused for rest, and presently slipping from his seat he sank into a deep, lethargic slumber, his boat thereafter drifting on at the mercy of the wind and tide.

He was awakened by the sound of voices, how long after he could not know, but time must have sped in his sleep, for it seemed almost dawn. A thin grey mist hung like a tattered awning above the surface of the waters, the stars were paling their lamps in the lightening sky, though still distinguishable through the haze of fog; but the lights of the vessels at anchor in the harbour gleamed dully red, green, or amber, and seemed very far away.

In the distance he could just discern the familiar shape of the Dido looming like a white spectre of the mist. He wondered in half-dazed fashion why it was that he could see her at all, for he fancied he had rowed miles in his fervid race with thought, but he reflected that with nothing to guide him he had probably spun in circles through the sea.

Then the voices which had disturbed his slumbers recurred to him. He heard, too, a sound as of waters lapping the sides of crags. Wonderingly he turned, to see towering above him close at hand the dark walls of a great tramp steamer, swinging at her anchors in the stream.

Silhouetted against the sky, their arms resting on the bulwarks, stood boldly forth the heads and busts of two men, who each wore the peaked cap of a ship's officer. Their voices were distinctly borne to Cuthbert through the deep stillness of the morning air, as his boat slowly drifted, a creature of the fog, past the huge sides of the ship.

One voice was harsh and strident, faintly reminiscent of the croaking of a water-fowl, but the other was musical, deep-toned, and far-reaching, and it sounded besides strangely familiar to Cuthbert's ears. At first he idly, incuriously listened, but presently a name half-caught made him strain forward, eager and alert.

"You should get a faster vessel," he heard the strident voice remark. "Your old tub is fit for nothing but a coal hulk now."

"Ay," answered the other's mellow tones, "but the trouble is to find the one I want."

"I'll put you on to a good thing. Do you see that yacht over there, the Dido?"

"Yes, I marked her as I came across; as pretty a model as ever visited this coast, though the double funnel spoils her beauty a bit."

"Ha, ha!" croaked the first voice, "spoils her, does it? You should see her run. Five months ago, when I was taking guns to the Cuban rebels, she passed me off Florida as if the Caliban was standing still. She left us hull down in five hours, and we were making fifteen knots good."

"She must own fine engines, then."

The man with the croak was silent while he lit a cigar. By the aid of a flickering match-light, Cuthbert caught a momentary glimpse of his black-bearded visage, but though he strained his eyes to see, the face of the other whose voice still baffled his memory remained shrouded in gloom.

"She's near the fastest thing afloat, I reckon; built at Baltimore for Cuthbert Stone," croaked the smoker.

"Ah, the Yankee millionaire."

"Millionaire that was, my boy; I fancy if the cables in last night's late editions were correct, that the corner he tried to work in grain has about cooked him."

"How comes his yacht to be here?"

"Yankee cunning," answered the other, between a chuckle and a drawl; "he's here with her. He thought, I expect, that if he happened to be a few thousand knots away from Wall Street while the job was being worked, he'd stand a better chance of hoodwinking his guileless pals the brokers. But he has fallen in the soup right up to the neck."

The chuckle in the speaker's voice was unmistakable at that moment, and Cuthbert Stone, listening amid the darkness and the mist, felt a sudden murderous impulse steal over him. Almost unconsciously his hand strayed to his hip pocket, where happily a derringer was not, though he sighed to find its place unoccupied.

"I wonder where this broken smarty is to be found?" the rich deep tones of the other man broke in upon Cuthbert's homicidal musings.

"Union Club or the Australia Hotel," replied the croaker; "but to return to that deal we've been speaking of."

"Yes."

"I guess you magnify the risk. I go to Honolulu this day three weeks. Couldn't you take a trip to the islands in the meantime, and meet me on your return, say, at that—parallel—longitude? How the devil could any soul suspect such an arrangement? You could land the stuff as you did the last, and a cool thousand in each of our pockets, with no questions asked."

"No questions asked," repeated the musical voice of the other dreamily.

"Quite so," spoke up the croaker; "and as I brought the stuff over for you, it would be dashed uncomradely to slip me up now, wouldn't it?"

"Wouldn't it!" echoed the other.

"I thought I'd bring you to see it in the right light," cried the croaker heartily, and Cuthbert saw him slap his companion vigorously upon the back.

But the man who received the slap started suddenly.

"Eh, what?" he cried.

"I'm damned if you've heard a word I've said!" shouted the croaker in a rage.

"You're wrong," returned his companion coolly. "I heard you, but I was thinking of another matter. I can't help you this trip, captain. I have another affair on hand."

"Well, why the devil didn't you say so at first, instead of wasting all this time?"

Cuthbert Stone did not hear the other's reply, and thereafter the voice of either came only in a faint murmur to his ears. He found the reason in the fact that his boat was gradually drifting farther and farther from the steamer, and presently putting out his oars he rowed slowly back to the Dido, wondering vaguely the while where it was that he had heard before the peculiar mellow tones of the musical speaker's voice. The problem was solved sooner than he could have expected.

Later that same morning, while he lounged in the smoking-room of the Union Club, waiting in a fret of anxiety the arrival of a cable which he expected would notify him finally of the disposition of his fate, riches or ruin, a waiter informed him of the arrival of two visitors in company, tending him at the same time a single paste-board. Cuthbert read a name which set his pulses throbbing; the name was—"Julian Savage."

"Come to borrow money on the strength of saving my life," he thought; then added grimly to himself, "well, he's come to a foundering ship."

"Show them in," he said curtly to the waiting servant, but the moment after only one person entered—Julian Savage.

The young Australian was dressed in a nondescript sea officer's uniform, which suited his appearance admirably. He started with surprise when he recognised the man he had come to see.

"You!" he cried.

Cuthbert Stone believed this surprise to be more affected than real, but he remembered that it was incumbent upon him to assume the role of the grateful debtor, and he replied with courtesy:

"Yes, it is I, Mr. Savage. I am delighted that you have afforded me an opportunity of again expressing my extreme gratitude. Everything I have is yours," he added, laughing up his sleeve, as he reflected that his offer was not, after all, worth much at that moment.

"I did not know till I entered the room that you are Mr. Stone," replied the other, with a faintly humorous smile. "I called to see you on a matter of business."

"Won't you sit down, sir? Will you take something to drink—a glass of wine?"

"No, I thank you; but if I may smoke——"

"Do."

Julian Savage rolled and lit a cigarette, while Cuthbert Stone gradually struggled from a maze of startled thoughts which had possessed him since he had heard his visitor speak, for Julian's voice was identical with that of the musical-toned speaker whose conversation he had overheard that very morning from the tramp steamer's deck, while he himself lay in his boat shrouded from observation by the harbour mists.

"As I have come to see you on business, and I am a busy man, I trust you will excuse me if I strike straight to the heart of the matter," said Julian Savage.

"Certainly," replied Cuthbert Stone, who had now recovered from his surprise, and like all Americans was, on the mere mention of business, at his best, courteous, but collected and alert.

The Australian thought that he had seldom seen a more handsome man than the American; the American thought, "This man is a smart customer, I must watch him."

"You have a yacht?" suggested Julian Savage.

"You are well informed," smiled the other; "the Dido."

"Is it true that you can get a speed out of her of thirty knots?"

"Very nearly that under forced draught; but may I ask the reason of your inquiry?"

"I wish to purchase her."

Cuthbert Stone frowned in spite of himself.

"The Dido is not for sale," he said curtly, and with some warmth; then recollecting his role of grateful debtor, he added, "I am sorry not to be able to oblige you in this, Mr. Savage."

"Don't mention it," returned the Australian politely. "Pray read your message; don't mind me," this in reference to a telegram which a waiter entering the room at that moment offered Cuthbert Stone upon a salver.

The American forgot his visitor completely in reading his cable. His face, at first on fire with curious anxiety, gradually became dull and hard set as he conned the paper; and his reading over, he stared blankly at the wall before him for quite a time, watched by the Australian from out of the corners of his eyes.

"Ahem," said Julian Savage at last.

Cuthbert Stone started up and drove his clenched fist on the table before him.

"You!" he cried, white-faced and miserable, "what do you want?"

"Your yacht," returned the Australian, with brutal directness.

Cuthbert Stone laughed a nasty, mirthless laugh, and straightened himself up in his chair.

"That's business," he said; "what is your offer?"

"Thirty thousand pounds."

"Bosh, man, she cost me nigh half a million dollars less than a year ago," but he read his cablegram again reflectively.

"Thirty thousand pounds spot cash," repeated Julian Savage.

"There are two quick-firing guns on board the Dido that alone cost me nearly half the sum you name," said the American, and he returned to the reading of his cable.

"You will not be able to obtain more than I offer you in Sydney, and it would-take you weeks of trying to get as much," declared the Australian.

Cuthbert Stone looked up languidly; despair had settled upon him; he had lost all interest in the deal.

"Read that telegram," he said.

Julian, taking the paper offered, found a few code words translated by pencil notes in the margin; he read—"Cable 200,000 dollars instanter, save credit. Chance—Bate, New York."

"The stars in their courses fight for Sisera," he muttered; but aloud, "I hope the 'chance' I read of here will ultimately bring you a golden harvest, Mr. Stone," he murmured politely.

The American shrugged his shoulders, his features twisting themselves into a hopeless and somewhat sickly smile.

"I suppose I should improve it," he muttered in a languid voice, wherein indifference combated despair. "Give me enough to meet that demand, Mr. Savage, and the Dido is yours."

Julian Savage nodded. Walking briskly to the door, he returned almost immediately accompanied by a well-dressed man, who must have been waiting in the passage.

"Let me introduce Mr. Stone, Mr. Gavan Hood. Mr. Gavan Hood is my solicitor, Mr. Stone."

Cuthbert Stone mechanically inclined his head in the direction of the man of law, but a vacant and listless expression sat upon his face. It was plain that he was scarcely conscious of what transpired. As in a dream, he listened while the lawyer monotonously recited the contents of a formidable-looking parchment document. He asked no question, nor did he speak; he did not seem to understand. He was requested to sign his name, and to set his hand to a certain seal. Like an automaton, he did as he was bid. Julian Savage handed him an open cheque for £41,664 13s. 4d. saying: "If you prefer, I shall send and have this cashed." But even Cuthbert's business instincts had departed from him; idly, dreamily, he shook his head.

Julian Savage regarded him with something approaching pity in his eyes.

"Any of your personal belongings or valuables now on board the Dido you are welcome to take at your convenience, of course, Mr. Stone," he said.

Cuthbert vacantly looked at him. "Of course," he muttered aimlessly.

"Good-bye, sir," said the Australian.

"Good-bye," echoed Cuthbert Stone,

Still apparently in a dream, he presently arose and wandered forth down Bligh Street towards the banks, holding Julian's cheque between two nerveless fingers by a single corner of the fragile paper.