Carette of Sark Part 52

"Sorry won't set this right,"--with a shake of the head like an angry bull,--"No--'cre nom-de-Dieu!"

He was a rather violent old man, but skillful with his terrible little tools, and he worked away with them till I left him hurriedly.

He came out after a time with the bullet in his hand, "Le v'la," he said tersely. "And if that was all--bien! But--!" and he shook his head ominously, and talked of matters connected with the brain which were quite beyond me, but still caused me much discomfort.

He told me what to do and promised to return next day.

Torode--I never could bring myself to think of him as my father--came to himself during the night, for in the morning his eyes were open and they followed me with a puzzled lack of understanding. He evidently did not know where he was or how he got there. But he lay quietly and asked no questions except with his eyes.

When the doctor came he asked, "Has he spoken yet?"

"Not yet;" and he nodded.

"How long must he stop here, Monsieur le Docteur?"

"It depends," he said, looking at me thoughtfully. "Another week at all events. You want to take him home?"

"He is better at home."

"I must keep him for a week at all events."

So that day I took over some provisionings for Krok, and found him well advanced with his building. He had got the walls of a small cabin about half-way up, and had collected drift timber enough to roof it and to spare.

I told him how things stood, put in a few hours' work with him on the house, and got back to Rozel.

"Has he spoken?" was the doctor's first question next day.

"Not a word."

"Ah!" with a weighty nod, and he lifted Torode's left hand, and when he let it go it fell limply.

And again, each day, his first question was, "Has he spoken?" And my reply was always the same. For, whether through lack of power or strength of will I could not tell, but certain it was that no word of any kind had so far pa.s.sed between us.

One time, coming upon him unawares, I saw his lips moving as though he were attempting speech to himself, but as soon as he saw me he set himself once more to his grim silence, and the look in his eyes reminded me somehow of Krok.

On the seventh day, when the doctor asked his usual question, and I as usual replied, he said gravely, "'Cre nom-de-Dieu, I doubt if he will ever speak again. You see--" and he went off into a very full and deep explanation about certain parts of the brain, of which I understood nothing except that they were on the left side and controlled the powers of speech, and he feared the bullet and the inflammation it had caused had damaged them beyond repair. And when I turned to look at Torode the dumb misery in his eyes a.s.sured me in my own mind that it was so, for I had seen just that look in Krok's eyes many a time.

Another whole week I waited, visiting Krok three times in all, and the last time finding him living quite contentedly in the finished house. And then, Torode having spoken no word, and the doctor saying he could do no more for him, I had him carried down to the boat and took him across to the Ecrehous.

He had been gaining strength daily, and, except for a certain disinclination to exertion of any kind, and his lack of speech, looked almost himself again. Later on, when he walked and worked, I noticed a weakness in his left arm, and his left leg dragged a little.

At Krok's suggestion I had bargained for a small boat, and I took him also a further supply of provisions, and flour, and fis.h.i.+ng-lines. And before I left them I thought it right to explain to Torode just what had happened.

He listened in a cold black fury, but fell soon into a slough of despond.

His life was over, but he was not dead. For him, as for the rest of us, death would, I think, have been more merciful--and yet, I would not have had him die at my hands.

And so I left the two dumb men on the Ecrehous and returned to Sercq, and of my welcome there I need not tell.

My mother and Aunt Jeanne were full of questionings which taxed my wits to breaking point to evade, especially Aunt Jeanne's. She tried to trap me in a hundred ways, leading up from the most distant and innocent points to that which had kept me away so long. And since truth consists as much in not withholding as in telling, I was brought within measurable distance of lying by Aunt Jeanne's pertinacity, for which I think the blame should fairly rest with her.

I told them simply that I had been on matters connected with Torode, and would still be engaged on them for some time to come, and left it there.

Carette, of course, understood, and approved all I had done. She saw with me the necessity of keeping the matter from my mother, lest her peace of mind should suffer s.h.i.+pwreck again, and to no purpose. Her loving tenderness and thought for my mother at this time were a very great delight to me, and commended her still more to my mother herself.

My grandfather was still in Guernsey. His leg had taken longer to heal than it might have done, and, failing my information against the Herm men, his was of use to the authorities in preparing the charge against them.

There were near forty prisoners brought over from Sercq, some of them so sorely wounded that it was doubtful if they would live until their trial.

The rest had been killed, except some few who were said to have got across to France. To my great relief neither young Torode nor his mother was among the dead or the captives.

Krok was supposed in Sercq to be with my grandfather in Guernsey, and his absence excited no remark. For myself, in Sercq my absence was accounted for by the necessity for my being in Guernsey,--while in Guernsey an exaggerated account of the wound I had received on the Coupee offered excuse for my retirement; and so the matter pa.s.sed without undue comment.

George Hamon had informed my grandfather of his recognition of Torode, and he told me afterwards that for a very long time the old man flatly refused to believe it.

My news of Torode's recovery was not, I think, over-welcome to Uncle George. He would have preferred him dead, and the old trouble buried for ever, forgetting always that his death must have left something of a cloud on my life, though he always argued strongly against that view of the case.

"I find it hard to swallow, mon gars, in spite of George Hamon's a.s.surance," said my grandfather when we spoke of it.

"I found it hard to believe. But Uncle George had no doubts about it. Krok, too, recognised him."

"Krok did? Ah--then--" and he nodded slow acceptance of the unwelcome fact.

Before I was through with the telling of my story, and signing it, and swearing to it before various authorities, I was heartily sick of the whole matter, and wished, as indeed I had good reason, that I had never sailed with John Ozanne in the _Swallow_.

But--"pas de rue sans but"--and at last all that unpleasing business was over--except a little after-clap of which you will hear presently.

After many delays and formalities, all the prisoners were condemned to death, and I was free to go home and be my own man again.

Twice while in Guernsey I had taken advantage of the slow course of the law to run across to Jersey and so to the Ecrehous, and found Torode settled down in dumb bitterness to the narrow life that was left to him.

He was quite recovered in every way save that of speech, but that great loss broke his power and cut him off from his kind.

I had never told him that his wound came from my hand, but he a.s.sociated me with it in some way, and showed so strong a distaste for my company that I thought well to go no more.

He had taken a dislike to old Krok too. Their common loss had in it the elements of mockery, and on my second visit Krok expressed a desire to return to Sercq. Torode could maintain himself by fis.h.i.+ng, as they had done together, and could barter his surplus at Rozel or Gorey for anything he required.

And so we left him to his solitude, and he seemed content to have us go.

George Hamon, however, ran across now and again in his lugger to see how he was getting on, and to make sure that he was still there, and perhaps with the hope that sooner or later that which was in himself still, as strong as it had been any time this twenty years, might find its reward.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX

HOW I CAME INTO RICH TREASURE

"Carette, ma mie," I asked, as we sat in the heather on Longue Pointe, the evening after I got home, "when shall we marry?"

"When you will, Phil. I am ready."