Nautilus Part 8

He leaned forward, and his glance was like the flash of a sword. The child looked in wonder from one to the other; for the old man had sunk back in his chair, and his jaw had fallen open in an ugly way, and altogether he was a sad object to look at.

"What--what d'ye mean?" he gasped, after a moment. But the Skipper went on, speaking lightly and cheerfully, as if talking of the weather.

"What pleasure to bring before the mind a picture of a family so charming! Of you, dear sir, in your gracious childhood, how endearing the image! how tenderly guarded, how fondly cherished here by your side the little sister? Ah! the smiling picture, making glad the heart! This sister, Zen.o.bia, let us say, grows up, after what happy childhood with such a brother needs for me not to say. They are three, these children,--how must they love each other! But one brother goes early away from the home! In time comes for Zen.o.bia, as to young maidens will come, a suitor, a foreigner, shall we say? a man, like myself, of the sea? May it not have been possible, dear sir?"

"A roving n.o.body!" the old man muttered, striving to pull himself together. "A rascally"--but here he stopped abruptly, for a stern hand was laid on his arm.

"I am speaking at this present, sir!" said the Skipper. "Of this man I do not ask you the character. I tell my story, if you please, in my own way.

"The mother, by this time, is dead. The father, unwilling to part with his daughter,--alas! the parental heart, how must it be torn? As yours, the tender one, last night, on missing this beloved child, Sir Sc.r.a.per.

The father, I say, opposes the marriage; at length only, and after many tears, much sorrow, some anger, consents; the daughter, sister, Zen.o.bia, goes with her husband away, promising quickly to return, to take her old father to her home in the southern islands. Ah, the interesting tale, is it not? Observe, Colorado, my son, how I am able to move this, your dear guardian. The pleasant thing, to move the mind of age, so often indifferent.

"Zen.o.bia goes away, and the son, the good son, the one faithful and devoted, who will not marry, so great his love for his parent, is left with that parent alone. How happy can we fancy that parent, is it not?

How gay for him the days, how sweet for him the nights, lighted with love, and smoothed his pillow by loving hands,--ah, the pleasant picture! But how, my friend, you feel yourself not well? Colorado, a gla.s.s of water for your guardian."

The old man motioned the child back, his little eyes gleaming with rage and fear.

"You--you come a-nigh me, you brat, and I'll wring your neck!" he gasped. "Well, Mister, have you finished your--your story, as you call it? Why do I want to listen to your pack of lies, I should like to know?

I wonder I've had patience to let you go on so long."

"Why do you want to listen?" the Skipper repeated. "My faith, do I know?

But the appearance of interest in your face so venerable, it touch me to the heart. Shall I go and tell the rest of my story to him there, that other, the justice of the peace? But no, it would break your heart to hear not the end. That we proceed then, though not so cheerful the ending of my story. Zen.o.bia, in her southern home, happy, with her child at her knee, feels still in her heart the desire to see once more her father, to bring him to her, here in the warm south to end his days of age. She writes, but no answer comes; again she writes, and again, grief in her soul, to think that anger is between her and one so dear. At last, after a long time, a letter from her brother, the stay-at-home, the faithful one; their father is dead; is dead,--without speaking of her; the property is to him left, the faithful son. It is finished, it is concluded, the earth is shut down over the old man, and no more is to say.

"With what tender, what loving words this cruel news tells itself, needs not to repeat to a person so of feeling as yourself, Sir Sc.r.a.per.

Zen.o.bia, sad woman, believes what she is told; bows her head, gathers to her closer her husband and her son, and waits the good time when G.o.d shall make to her good old father the clear knowledge that she has always loved him. Ah, yes, my faith!

"Now, in a year, two years, I know not, what arrives? A letter, old and worn; a letter soiled, discoloured, of carrying long in a sailor's pocket, but still easily to be read. This letter--shall we guess, Sir Sc.r.a.per? Well, then, from her father! The old man in secret, in fear, lying on his bed of death, makes come by stealth a neighbour, kindly disposed to him; makes write by his hand this letter; makes draw up besides, it may be, other papers, what do we know?

"Ah! but remain quiet, dear sir. Grieved that I do not interest you, I must still pray of your presence, that you do not yet withdraw it.

Ancient fish-skin, do I tie thee in thy chair?

"So! that is well, and you will remain quiet, Senor, with a thousand pardons!

"This letter, then, it is one to wring the heart. He has longed for his daughter, this poor old man; in two grasping hands held as in a vise, he turns to her who was always kind, he prays her to return, to let him come to her, what she will. Failing this, and knowing that on earth the time is short for him to remain, he bids her not grieve, but send to her home a messenger of trust, and let him look for a certain paper, in a certain place. Finally, he prays for her the blessing of G.o.d, this good old man, and bids her farewell, if he may never see her more. Truly, a letter over which a pirate, even a Malay pirate, Colorado of my heart, might shed tears."

The Skipper's voice was still quiet, but its deep tones were stern with suppressed feeling; with menace, was it? The child, bewildered, looked from one to the other of his two companions. The Spaniard's eyes burned red in their depths, his glance seemed to pierce marrow and sinew; he sat leaning lightly forward in his chair, alert, possessing himself, ready for any sudden movement on the part of his adversary; for the old man must be his adversary; something deadly must lie between these two.

Mr. Sc.r.a.per lay back in his chair like one half dead, yet the rage and spite and hatred, the baffled wonder, the incredulity struggling with what was being forced upon him, made lively play in his sunken face. His lean hands clutched the arms of the chair as if they would rend the wood; his frame shook with a palsy. Little John wondered what could ail his guardian; yet his own heart was stirred to its depths by what he had heard.

"The son was bad!" he cried. "He was a bad man! Things must have sat upon his breast _all_ night, and I am sure he could not sleep at all.

Are you sorry for a person who is as bad as that? do you think any one tried to help him to be better?"

But the Skipper raised his finger, and pointed to the evil face of the old man.

"Does that man look as if he slept, my son?" he asked.

"Listen always, and you shall hear the last of the story."

"It's a lie!" Mr. Sc.r.a.per screamed at last, recovering the power of speech.

"It's a lie that you've cooked up from what you have heard from the neighbours. May their tongues rot out! And if it were true as the sun, what is it to you? She's dead, I tell you! She's been dead these twenty years! I had the papers telling of her death; I've got 'em now, you fool."

"Quiet then, my uncle!" said the Skipper, bending forward, and laying his hand on the old man's knee.

"She is dead, she died in these arms. I am her son, do you see?"

But if Mr. Sc.r.a.per saw, it was only for a moment, for he gave a scream, and fell together sideways in his chair, struck with a fit.

CHAPTER X.

IN THE VALLEY OF DECISION.

"And now, Colorado, son of my heart," the Skipper said, "you understand why I was a thief that yesterday, and why I could not permit you at that instant to tell of my thieving?"

They had put the old man to bed, and Mr. Bill Hen had gone for the doctor. In fact, when John ran out of the door, he had found Mr. Bill Hen leaning up against it, as speechless, with amazement and confusion, as Mr. Sc.r.a.per himself! The good man, wholly unable to restrain his curiosity, had followed the Skipper and the boy, unbeknown to them, and posting himself in a convenient angle of the porch, had heard every word of the conversation. The Skipper, perceiving the facts, managed to rouse him with a few sharp words, and sent him off in hot haste to the village; and had then proceeded to make the old gentleman comfortable, and to set things s.h.i.+pshape, so far as might be.

"Do you think he will die?" asked John, peeping over the bed at the sunken features of the old man.

"I do not!" was the reply.

"I think this my revered uncle has yet many years to live--and repent, if so he be minded. He is a very bad old man, Colorado, this my revered uncle! Ah, thou ancient fish, thou art finally landed!"

"Are you sorry for a person when he is so bad as that?" asked the boy, as he had asked once before.

"Do you think a person could make him better, if he tried very hard indeed?"

"I have no knowledge!" said the Skipper, rather shortly. "I am a human person altogether, my son! and I concern myself not greatly with the improvement of this my revered uncle. Behold it, the will, made by my grandfather, the father of my poor mother, whose soul, with his, rest in eternal glory! By this, my mother, and I after her, inherit this house, this garden, these possessions such as they are. If I desire, son of mine, I may come here to-day to live, sell the 'Nautilus,' or cut her cable and let her drift down the river, with Rento and Franci, and all the sh.e.l.ls; and I may live here in my house, to--what do you say?

cultivate my lands, eat gra.s.s and give it to the cattle? What think you, Colorado? Is that a life? Shall I lead it, as is my right? Have I not had enough, think you, of roving over the sea, with no place where I may rest, save the heaving ocean, that rests never beneath the foot? Shall we turn out this old wicked man, who did to death his old father, who made my mother go sad of heart to her grave, who has done of all his life no kind act to any person--shall we turn him out, and live in peace here, you and I?"

The child came near to him, and laid his hand on his friend's knee, and looked up in his face with troubled eyes.

"I am not very bright," he said, "and you think so many things so quickly that I do not know what you mean a good deal of the time.

But--but Cousin Sc.r.a.per took me when my people died, and he has taken care of me ever since, and--and he has no one else to take care of him now."

"Yes, the fine care he has taken of you!" said the Skipper. "You are of skin and bone, my child, and there are marks on your skin of blows, I saw them yesterday: cruel blows, given from a bad heart. You have worked for him, this ancient fish-skin, how long? Of wages, how much has he paid you? Tell me these things, and I will tell you how much it is your duty to stay by him."

But John shook his head, and the shadows deepened in his blue eyes.

"You cannot tell a person those things," he said; "a person has to tell himself those things. But thank you all the same," he added, fervently; "and I love you always more and more, every day and every minute, and I always shall."

"Now the question is," said the Skipper, shrugging his shoulders in mock despair, "must I turn pirate in truth, to gain possession of a child whom I could hold in my pocket, and who would give all his coloured hair from his head to go with me? Go away, son of mine, that I reflect on these things, for you try my soul!"

John withdrew, very sad, and wondering how it was that right and wrong could ever get mixed. He thought of looking in some of the old books to see, but, somehow, books did not appeal to him just now. He went up to his own little room, and took down the china poodle, and had a long talk with him; that was very consoling, and he felt better after it; it was wonderful how it cleared the mind to talk a thing over with an old friend. The poodle said little, but his eyes were full of sympathy, and that was the main thing. By-and-by, as the child sat by his little window, polis.h.i.+ng the pearl-sh.e.l.l on his sleeve, and thinking over the strange events of the last few days, there came to him from below the sound of voices. The doctor was there, evidently; perhaps Mr. Bill Hen, too; and little as he felt inclined to merriment, John fell into a helpless laughter, as he recalled the look of that worthy man when he was discovered flattened against the door. How much older one grew sometimes in a short time! Mr. Bill Hen used to look so old, so wise, and now he seemed no more than another boy, and perhaps rather a foolish boy. But seeing the Skipper made a great difference in a person's life.

Presently the door at the foot of the stairs opened, and John heard his name called; he hastened down, and found Mr. Sc.r.a.per sitting up in bed, looking pale and savage, but in full possession of his faculties. The doctor was there, a burly, kind-eyed man, and Mr. Bill Hen was there, and the Skipper; and when little John entered, they all looked at him, and no one said anything for a moment.