Читать книгу The Gold Brick - Ann S. Stephens - Страница 10

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"I'll have an end of this," said Thrasher, as he went into the cabin restless and anxious. Throwing himself on the locker, he began muttering to himself. "As for keeping this child to hang around my neck like a millstone, I never will. He's old enough to remember every thing; and if the negro tells tales he'll be sure to cherish them. What possesses Rice to rise up against me in this way? If he'd been quiet, I'd have had 'em both under water before half the voyage was over."

Thrasher lay awhile revolving these thoughts in his mind, without arriving at any satisfactory conclusion. At last, a new anxiety seized upon him; he started up, and went to the closet set into the wall, in which he had seen Captain Mason secure the box of jewels that Jube had placed in his keeping.

"It's fortunate I secured this," he muttered, taking a key from his vest pocket, and fitting it into the lock. "He didn't know I was on the watch, careful as he was. Ha, it's all here! and that nigger knows it as well as I do. He'll tell, and then Rice'll take another hitch in the eternal rope that's being knotted around me. I would give any thing to know exactly what the fellow is at, but I won't ask questions, that's against my principles; they let out too much."

As he spoke, Thrasher sat down, placed the bronze box on his knee, and forced the lid open. Just as we have seen them before, the jewels lay huddled together, without cushions or caskets; but, here and there, a fragment of crimson or white satin clung to them as if they had been torn away from their cases in wild haste.

"Now, I dare say, this is worth lots of money, if one only knew about it," he said, taking up a necklace, formed in links of large, oblong opals, with rainbows breaking in fragments from their hearts, and rivulets of diamonds running around them. "How it glitters! This would be pretty for her. I wonder if she'd take it from me now? or warn me off as she did that evening? Well, I don't know about that—a poor wretch, with nothing but his good looks, and so on, to recommend him, is another thing from a fellow that can come to a woman with both hands full of yellow gold and such things as this. Wouldn't they blaze on that white neck!—such a neck, with shoulders that dimple like a baby's hand! I saw them once when she was dressed to go out with him. She little thought I was under the window, and that a corner of the paper curtain was turned up, just leaving a peep-hole. How softly the white dress was folded over her bosom. Lord, how my heart went down as she put on that lace cape, and fastened it with a wild rose that he had given her before my very face! No wonder I hated him! there isn't a man on earth that could have helped it. Handsome—was he really handsomer than I? did she love him so very much? Oh, how it blazes! These are real diamonds, no mistake about that. How the light rains from them! Oh, how I'd like to see it flashing on her neck, just as it was then, with two or three of these things in her yellow curls. Women like these gew-gaws; and she's fond of pretty things—like a child about them; besides, she'll be poor enough before I get home, she and the child—his child."

He crushed the necklace in his hand, as the image of a pretty, fair haired baby girl rose before him, and crowded it fiercely down into the box. "She'd be wanting some of them for her, I dare say. Well, perhaps that woman could do any thing with me; in fact, when I first knew her, any kind woman, from my mother down, would mould me as she liked, I was wax then; but after she married him—well, it's no use thinking what one has been, or how much better things might have turned out; there's iron enough in me now. Still, I loved her then well enough to go mad and run away from all that ever cared for me. I might have been a gentleman; the old folks educated me well enough for that or any thing else, but she drove me out before the mast. Storms and hardships was what I wanted; I got enough of it in the end. It made me tough and hard as the rocks we sometimes narrowly escaped. Cruel, too—every one says that—but I could be kind to her and the little girl, perhaps, if the mother loved me. If not, oh, how I should hate the blue-eyed imp."

These thoughts seemed to excite the man beyond anything that persons knowing his stern character would have believed. His hands clutched and unclutched themselves in the jewels, his lips quivered, and alternate gleams of fire and clouds of mist chased each other in his eyes. He started up, thrust the box back to its closet, forgetting the fears that had urged him to seek for it, and putting the key back into his pocket went on deck. The first sharp gust of wind that swept his face carried off these feverish thoughts and he grew hard as rock again.

Paul was on deck, crouching down among the barrels and bales of merchandise that offered him friendly concealment. Wretched and heart-broken, the child watched for Rice. When he saw Thrasher, fear made him shrink together and hold his breath as if some wild beast were creeping along his path. After a little, the mate went down again and Rice appeared.

The boy crept from his hiding-place and came up to the sailor.

"What have you done with him? please tell me."

"Oh, here you are, as large as life," said Rice, who had missed Paul from the deck, and felt some relief at finding him alone and so quiet. "Done with him? why cleared out a snug harbor in the hold, and anchored him safe and sound. Come along, if you want to see."

"Oh, yes, yes, I want it so much. Is it dark?"

"Rayther, I should think."

"May I hold your hand?"

"Aye, aye, come along afore the captain knocks us all aback."

"Who goes there," cried out a voice from the cabin stairs.

"Nobody but Rice and this 'ere little shaver," answered Rice, facing round to meet Thrasher.

"Where are you taking him?"

"Nowhere just now—he wants to take a look out."

"Very well—pass on."

Thrasher went down to the cabin again; he had seen Rice as he led the boy across the deck, and understood the opposition which was going on to his wishes. The train of thought that had seized him while examining the jewels had not entirely passed away, but with it came others appealing to his worst passions, and mingling themselves, as evil things sometimes will, with much that was tender and pure in the man's nature. He was not all bad—what human being is?—but he was a strong man, and used his evil strength without scruple to secure the love, which was, in truth, wounding him daily with its hungry cries.

Thrasher was afraid of Rice, and with him fear was an incentive to action. Jube and the boy Paul were also sources of great anxiety. They might interfere with his one great hope, and utterly destroy the brilliant future that lay so temptingly before him. All this was food for thought, and made him more than usually morose.

The sensitive nature of the boy Paul had suffered acutely by the indignity that had been put upon him, and still more by the awful scene of Jube's punishment. But there was a noble spirit in that little frame, and though he shrank from encountering his enemy, it was not from a cowardly feeling, but as a brave man may evade a wild beast that possesses a hundred-fold of his own physical powers. No amount of punishment would have induced the child to submit meanly; but he was a creature of exquisite refinement, and had, all his little life, been shielded from the first approach of sorrow. Within the last few weeks, he had been cast headlong into the boiling vortex of the most terrible scenes that ever disgraced humanity—scenes that drove many a stout man insane, and left a whole population at the mercy of savage, maddened slaves. He, a young, sensitive child, brought up in luxury, shielded from the very breath of a flower if it was not grateful to his fine sense—loved by his parents—idolized by a host of servants—had struggled through death, and horrors sharper than death, to find himself worse off a thousand times on board that brig, than any of his father's slaves had ever been.

And now his only friend was torn away, and cast into the black depths of the hold, smarting with pain, writhing under the ignominy of a first blow, and chained hand and foot like a mad dog. If little Paul had known that the captain would kill him, I think he might have found his way to that poor friend.

At last they were together, down in the black hollows of the ship, with scarcely a breath of air, and surrounded by a host of uncouth objects, which appalled them like the walls of a prison. They had no light, and the rush and gurgle of the waves sounded horribly distinct. Jube held up bravely after his little master came to bear him company. No groan escaped his lips, but he insisted on sitting up, and made Paul nestle close to him, striving to soothe and comfort the child, spite of his own keen suffering.