Читать книгу The Mystery Lady - Robert William Chambers - Страница 6

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That evening after dinner Mr. Welper wrote letters, and the boy went to the theatre.

Mr. Welper was still writing letters when the boy returned. Tired, ready for bed, he went into his room, which adjoined Mr. Welper’s. But a boy, no matter how sleepy, welcomes any diversion that postpones that outrageous waste of time called sleep.

As he stood yawning and undecided, his eye fell on the box which he had purchased at auction.

A large, wrought-iron key was tied to one handle. With his penknife he cut it loose, unlocked the box, and gazed at the stacks of ancient documents within.

All were tied with pink tape. A musty odour filled the room. The boy seated himself on the carpet, still yawning, picked up a packet of ancient deeds, tossed them aside, glanced over a sheaf of letters, petitions, invoices, legal documents with waning interest. Then, of a sudden, his eye fell upon the signature of Stede Bonnet. Interest freshened; he read the letter with the conscious thrill that invades all boys even when in vaguest contact with great malefactors.

He looked with awe upon the signature of Stede Bonnet, touched his finger to the faded ink, strove to realise that the hand which had penned this screed had been imbrued in human blood; shivered agreeably.

The letter was written by Bonnet on board the sloop Revenge off the Virginia Capes, to one Edward Teach, Esq., on board a ship called the Man-o’-War.

It requested a rendezvous for the two ships off False Cape.

Further, Bonnet informed Teach, he had obtained documents in the Barbadoes which, if deciphered, might clear up the mystery of the ship Red Moon. But, he added, it would require the crew of the Man-o’-War as well as his own crew to salvage the cargo if, indeed, the location of the sunken ship could be discovered.

Eden believed it lay in five fathoms somewhere off Tiger Island. The crews of the two ships could camp on Tiger Island, or, more comfortably, on the group of three islands west of False Cape and known as “The Place-of-Swans.”

The boy was wide awake now. Letter after letter he examined, untying and re-tying the faded yellowish packets.

These letters and documents offered all sorts of information concerning events on the high seas two hundred years ago. Among other things the boy learned that Bonnet had hoisted the black flag and had taken the Anne of Glasgow; that the other name for Edward Teach, Esq., was “Blackbeard the Pirate;” and that Blackbeard had as ally a bloody scoundrel named “Dick Hands,” commanding a sister ship near Ocracoke Inlet, North Carolina.

And now the thrills that had swept the boy when he first read Treasure Island so long ago again stirred his blond and curly hair. He read of abominable cruelties, of treachery unspeakable, of savage reprisal, of robbery, of torture, of murder, of heartless mirth, of horrible excesses, carouses, mutiny, of pursuit, of escapes by sea and land.

Hour after hour he sat there cross-legged on the carpet devouring the ancient records of wickedness; but, not until he came to the very last packet in the box, did he discover any further mention of the “Red Moon, galley.”

“She has been missing,” Bonnet wrote, “since the month of July in 1568, which is now more than a hundred and fifty years ago. But it is known that she sailed loaded from bilge to gunwales with pure, soft, Indian gold.... Which knowledge, when imparted to me by Eden,” added poor Bonnet, “so inflamed me that, although I was an English gentleman with vast estates in the West Indies, and indeed was rich and everywhere respected, I could think of naught but this Spanish shipful of soft, Indian gold.

“My God, Mr. Teach, I think my mind is crazed with the fierce flame of desire that devours me night and day. For such a man as I must be mad indeed to abandon estates, riches, and the approbation of honest men to take the sea for gold he hath no need of.

“Yes this, God help me, is what I have done in my sloop, Revenge; and I am committed, for I have taken the Anne of Glasgow; and the black flag flies at my fore.”

The other documents in the last packet were a paper and a parchment tied together.

The paper was grimly significant. In Governor Eden’s hand was written:

“This parchment, if properly translated, should indicate the precise spot where the Red Moon, galley, sank in 1568.”

Under this Stede Bonnet had written his name and: “Property of Governor Eden, who had it of the late Captain William Kidd.”

Under this was written:

“Kidd is in hell and Eden may go thither at his convenience. This document now belongs to Wm. Teach. Let him who hath a gamecock’s gizzard come and take it!”

The boy sat with mouth open staring at a specimen of that kind of Truth which makes fiction tasteless.

Here between his own fingers he had the terrible story as told by those who once enacted it; he actually was touching a paper which had been touched by the reeking hands of Blackbeard!

Legendary pirates suddenly had become living creatures of to-day, leering at him out of the lamplight, telling their frightful tales for his ears alone,—tales of blood and gold!

Again and again as in a trance he read the tragedy,—strove to read between the brief, grim lines, to visualise, to comprehend.

And now, trembling, the boy unfolded the parchment which, these bloody men informed one another, contained the key to a sunken ship loaded to the gunwales with “pure, soft, Indian gold!”

It was the strangest document he ever had gazed upon. Half of the parchment was covered with outlandish signs and symbols. Then there was a space; then some writing in Spanish, done with ink, perhaps; perhaps with blood.

The boy could neither decipher the strange and rather ghastly symbols, nor could he read Spanish.

For a long while he pored over the parchment, his eyes heavy now with sleep; and at last he placed it on his dresser and laid him down to dreams of blood and gold.

When Mr. Welper came in the morning to awake the boy he found him still sleeping.

It was a habit of Mr. Welper’s to satisfy a perennial curiosity concerning other people’s private business when opportunity offered.

He was a soft-handed, soft-footed, short, stout gentleman with a sanctimonious face and voice. His hands and feet were so disproportionately small that they seemed almost dwarfed; but they were endlessly busy implements in Mr. Welper’s service; and now his little feet trotted him soundlessly to the open box with its contents of yellow papers; and his little hands touched and pried and meddled and shuffled the documents, while at intervals his sly eyes fluttered toward the sleeping boy.

Presently Mr. Welper discovered the documents on the boy’s dresser; he approached, and had been cautiously studying them for a minute or so when suddenly the boy sat up in bed.

Caught in the act, Mr. Welper was, as always, efficient in any crisis.

“The wind,” he explained, “blew these papers into the bathroom. Supposing that, m—m, they belong to you, I entered your room to return them.”

Some latent instinct stirred the boy to get out of bed and take the papers which Welper laid upon the dresser. He got back into bed still clutching them.

“Where,” inquired Mr. Welper with gently jocose but paternal interest, “did you collect this ancient box of junk?”

“Oh, it’s just worthless stuff,” said the boy, reddening at the lie.

Mr. Welper stood motionless, a remote expression on his countenance.

“You had better dress and come to breakfast,” he said absently. “We start back to New York this morning, and our train leaves at ten.”

It was evident to the boy that Mr. Welper attached no importance to the documents.