Mr. Fortescue Part 43

Without waiting for an answer to his question, the officer ordered a hammock to be lowered, in which we carefully placed Angela, who was thereupon hoisted on the frigate's deck. We men followed, and were received by a fine old gentleman with a florid face and white hair, whom I rightly conjectured to be the captain.

"Well," he said, quietly, "what can I do for you?"

"Water," I gasped, for the exertion of coming on board had been almost too much for me.

"Poor fellow! Certainly. Why did I not think of it before? You shall have both food and drink. Somebody bring water with a dash of rum in it--not too much, they are weak. And Mr. Charles, tell the wardroom steward to get a square meal ready for this gentleman. Might I ask your name, sir?"

"Nigel Fortescue."

"Thank you, Mr. Fortescue. Mine is Bigelow, and I have the honor to command the United States s.h.i.+p Constellation. Here's the water! I hope you have not forgotten the dash of rum, Tomkins.--There! Take a long drink.

You will feel better now, and when you have had a square meal, you shall tell me all about it. And the others? You are an old salt, anybody can see that."

"Yes, sir. Bill Yawl at your service, an old man-o'-war's man, able-bodied seaman, bo's'n, and s.h.i.+p's carpenter, anything you like sir. Ax your pardon, sir, but a gla.s.s of half-water grog--"

"Not until you have eaten. Then you may have two gla.s.ses. Tomkins, take these men to the purser and tell him to give them a square meal. The doctor is attending to your wife, Mr. Fortescue. She is in my state-room and shall have every comfort we can give her."

"I thank you with all my heart, Captain Bigelow. You are really too good, I can never--"

"Tut, tut, tut, my dear sir. Pray don't say a word. I have only given her my spare state-room. Mr. Charles will take you to the ward-room, we can talk afterward. Meanwhile, I shall have your belongings got on board, and then, I suppose, we had better sink that craft of yours. If we leave her to knock about the ocean she may be knocking against some s.h.i.+p in the night and doing her a mischief."

After I had eaten the "square meal" set for me in the ward-room, and spent a few minutes with Angela, I joined the captain and first lieutenant in the former's state-room, and over a gla.s.s of grog, told them briefly, but frankly, something of my life and adventures.

"Well, it is the queerest yarn I ever heard; but I dare say none the less true on that account," said Captain Bigelow, when I had finished. "With that sweet lady for your wife and your belt full of diamonds, you may esteem yourself one of the most fortunate of men. And you did quite right to get away from that place. But what was your point? where did you expect to get to with that sloop of yours?"

"Callao."

"Callao! Why the course you were on would never have taken you to Callao.

Callao lies nor' by east, not nor' by west. If you had not fallen in with us, I am afraid you would never have got anywhere."

"I am sure we should not. Three days more and we should have died of thirst."

"Where shall we put you ash.o.r.e?"

"That is for you to say. Where would it be convenient?"

"How would Panama suit you?"

"It is just the place. We could cross the isthmus to Chagres; but before going to England, I should like to call at La Guayra, and find out whether my friend Carmen still lives."

"You can do that easily; but if I were you, and had all those diamonds in my possession, I would get home as quickly as possible, and put them in a place of safety. There are men who would commit a thousand murders for one of them."

"Well, I shall see. Perhaps I had better consign them to London through some merchant, and have them insured."

"Perhaps you had, especially if you can get somebody to insure the insurer. And take my advice, don't tell a soul on board what you have told us. My crew are pa.s.sably honest, but if they knew how many diamonds you carried about you, I should be very sorry to go bail for them."

As I went on deck after our talk, I was met by the surgeon.

"A word with you, Mr. Fortescue," he said, gravely, taking me aside, "your wife--"

"Yes, sir, what about my wife?" I asked, with a sudden sinking of the heart, for the man's manner was even more portentous than his words.

"She is very ill."

"She was very ill, and if we had remained longer on the sloop--but now--with nouris.h.i.+ng food and your care, doctor, she will quickly regain her strength. Indeed, she is better already."

"For the moment. But she is very much reduced and the symptoms are grave.

A recurrence of the fever--"

"But such a fever is so easily cured. I know what you are hinting at, doctor. Yet I cannot think--You will not let her die. After surmounting so many dangers, and being so miraculously rescued, and with prospects so fair, it would be too cruel."

"I will do my best, sir, you may be sure. But I thought it my duty to prepare you for the worst. The issue is with G.o.d."

This is a part of my story on which I care not to dwell. Even yet I cannot think of it without grief and pain. My dear wife was taken from me. She died in my arms, her hand in mine, as sweetly and serenely as she had lived. But for Captain Bigelow and his officers I should have buried myself with Angela in the fathomless sea. I owed him my life a second time--such as it was--more, for he taught me the duty and grace of resignation, showed me that, though to cherish the memory of a great sorrow enn.o.bles a man, he who abandons himself to unmeasured grief is as pusillanimous as he who s.h.i.+rks his duty on the field of battle.

Captain Bigelow had a great heart and a chivalrous nature. After Angela's death he treated me more as a cherished son than as a casual guest. Before we reached Panama we were fast friends. He provided me with clothing and gave me money for my immediate wants, as to have attempted to dispose of any of my diamonds there, or at Chagres, might have exposed me to suspicion, possibly to danger. In acknowledgement of his kindness and as a souvenir of our friends.h.i.+p, I persuaded him to accept one of the finest stones in my collection, and we parted with mutual a.s.surances of goodwill and not without hope of meeting again.

Ramon of course, went with me. Bill Yawl, equally of of course, I left behind. He had slung his hammock in the Constellation's fo'castle, and became captain of the foretop.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV.

OLD FRIENDS AND A NEW FOE.

I had made up my mind to see Carmen, if he still lived; and finding at Chagres a schooner bound for La Guayra I took pa.s.sages in her for myself and Ramon, all the more willingly as the captain proposed to put in at Curacoa. It occurred to me that Van Voorst, the Dutch merchant in whose hands I had left six hundred pounds, would be a likely man to advise me as to the disposal of my diamonds--if he also still lived.

Rather to my surprise, for people die fast in the tropics, I did find the old gentleman alive, but he had made so sure of my death that my reappearance almost caused his. The pipe he was smoking dropped from his mouth, and he sank back in his chair with an exclamation of fear and dismay.

"Yor need not be alarmed, Mynheer Van Voorst," I said; "I am in the flesh."

"I am glad to see you in the flesh. I don't believe in ghosts, of course.

But I happened to be in what you call a brown study, and as I had heard you were shot long ago on the llanos you rather startled me, coming in so quietly--that rascally boy ought to have announced you. But I was not afraid--not in the least. Why should one be afraid of a ghost! And I saw at a glance that, as you say, you were in the flesh. I suppose you have come to inquire about your money. It is quite safe, my dear sir, and at your disposal, and you will find that it has materially increased. I will call for the ledger, and you shall see."

The ledger was brought in by a business-looking young man, whom the old merchant introduced to me as his nephew and partner, Mynheer Bernhard Van Voorst.

"This is Mr. Fortescue, Bernhard," he said, "the English gentleman who was dead--I mean that I thought he was dead, but is alive--and who many years ago left in my hands a sum of about two thousand piasters. Turn to his account and see how much there is now to his credit?"

"At the last balance the amount to Mr. Fortescue's credit was six thousand two hundred piasters."[2]

[2] At the time in question, "piaster" was a word often used as an equivalent for "dollar," both in the "Gulf ports" and the West Indies.

"You see! Did I not say so? Your capital is more than doubled."

"More than doubled! How so?"