Delphi collected works o.., p.665
Delphi Collected Works of Grant Allen, page 665
‘Well now, Ethel,’ Cecil Mitford went on as gaily as he could, ‘that brings me up to the second point. I want you to sell out these wretched New Zealands, so as to take the money with me to invest on good mortgages in Jamaica. My experience in West Indian matters — after three years in the Department — will enable me to lay it out for you at nine per cent. — nine per cent., observe, Ethel — on absolute security of landed property. Planters want money to improve their estates, and can’t get it at less than that rate. Your three hundred would bring you in twenty-seven pounds, Ethel; twenty-seven pounds is a lot of money!’
What could poor Ethel do? In his plausible, affectionate manner — and all for her own good, too — Cecil talked her over quickly between love and business experience, coaxing kisses and nine per cent. interest, endearing names and knowledge of West Indian affairs, till helpless little Ethel willingly promised to give up her poor little three hundred, and even arranged to meet Cecil secretly on Thursday at the Bank of England, about Colonial Office dinner-hour, to effect the transfer on her own account, without saying a single word about it to Aunt Emily or Mr. Cartwright. Cecil’s conscience — for he had a conscience, though he did his best to stifle it — gave him a bitter twinge every now and then, as one question after another drove him time after time into a fresh bit of deceit; but he tried to smile and smile and be a villain as unconcernedly and lightly as possible. Once only towards the end of the evening, when everything was settled, and Cecil had talked about his passage, and the important business with which he was intrusted, at full length, a gleam of suspicion seemed to flash for a single second across poor Ethel’s deluded little brains. Jamaica — promotion — three hundred pounds — it was all so sudden and so connected; could Cecil himself be trying to deceive her, and using her money for his wild treasure hunt? The doubt was horrible, degrading, unworthy of her or him; and yet somehow for a single moment she could not help half-unconsciously entertaining it.
‘Cecil,’ she said, hesitating, and looking into the very depths of his truthful blue eyes; ‘you’re not concealing anything from me, are you? It’s not some journey connected with John Cann?’
Cecil coughed and cleared his throat uneasily, but by a great effort he kept his truthful blue eyes still fixed steadily on hers. (He would have given the world if he might have turned them away, but that would have been to throw up the game incontinently.) ‘My darling Ethel,’ he said evasively, ‘how on earth could the Colonial Office have anything to do with John Cann?’
‘Answer me Yes or No, Cecil. Do please answer me Yes or No.’
Cecil kept his eyes still fixed immovably on hers, and without a moment’s hesitation answered quickly ‘No.’ It was an awful wrench, and his lips could hardly frame the horrid falsehood, but for Ethel’s sake he answered ‘No.’
‘Then I know I can trust you, Cecil,’ she said, laying her head for forgiveness on his shoulder. ‘Oh, how wrong it was of me to doubt you for a second!’
Cecil sighed uneasily, and kissed her white forehead without a single word.
‘After all,’ he thought to himself, as he walked back to his lonely lodgings late that evening, ‘I need never tell her anything about it. I can pretend, when I’ve actually got John Cann’s treasure, that I came across the clue accidentally while I was in Jamaica; and I can lay out three hundred of it there in mortgages: and she need never know a single word about my innocent little deception. But indeed in the pride and delight of so much money, all our own, she’ll probably never think at all of her poor little paltry three hundred.’
III
It was an awfully long time, that eighteen days at sea, on the Royal Mail Steamship Don, bound for Kingston, Jamaica, with John Cann’s secret for ever on one’s mind, and nothing to do all day, by way of outlet for one’s burning energy, but to look, hour after hour, at the monotonous face of the seething water. But at last the journey was over; and before Cecil Mitford had been twenty-four hours at Date Tree Hall, the chief hotel in Kingston, he had already hired a boat and sailed across the baking hot harbour to Port Royal, to look in the dreary, sandy cemetery for any sign or token of John Cann’s grave.
An old grey-haired negro, digging at a fresh grave, had charge of the cemetery, and to him Cecil Mitford at once addressed himself, to find out whether any tombstone about the place bore the name of John Cann. The old man turned the name over carefully in his stolid brains, and then shook his heavy grey head with a decided negative. ‘Massa John Cann, sah,’ he said dubiously, ‘Massa John Cann; it don’t nobody buried here by de name ob Massa John Cann. I sartin, sah, becase I’s sexton in dis here cemetry dese fifty year, an’ I know de grabe ob ebbery buckra gentleman dat ebber buried here since I fuss came.’
Cecil Mitford tossed his head angrily. ‘Since you first came, my good man,’ he said with deep contempt. ‘Since you first came! Why, John Cann was buried here ages and ages before you yourself were ever born or thought of.’
The old negro looked up at him inquiringly. There is nothing a negro hates like contempt; and he answered back with a disdainful tone, ‘Den I can find out if him ebber was buried here at all, as well as you, sah. We has register here; we don’t ignorant heathen. I has register in de church ob every pusson dat ebber buried in dis cemetry from de berry beginnin — from de year ob de great earthquake itself. What year dis Massa John Cann him die, now? What year him die?’
Cecil pricked up his ears at the mention of the register, and answered eagerly, ‘In the year 1669.’
The old negro sat down quietly on a flat tomb, and answered with a smile of malicious triumph, ‘Den you is ignorant know-nuffin pusson for a buckra gentleman, for true, sah, if you tink you will find him grabe in dis here cemetry. Don’t you nebber read your history book, dat all Port Royal drowned in de great earthquake ob de year 1692? We has register here for ebbery year, from de year 1692 downward; but de grabes, and de cemetery, and de register, from de year 1692 upward, him all swallowed up entirely in de great earthquake, bress de Lord!’
Cecil Mitford felt the earth shivering beneath him at that moment, as verily as the Port Royal folk had felt it shiver in 1692. He clutched at the headstone to keep him from falling, and sat down hazily on the flat tomb, beside the grey-headed old negro, like one unmanned and utterly disheartened. It was all only too true. With his intimate knowledge of John Cann’s life, and of West Indian affairs generally, how on earth could he ever have overlooked it? John Cann’s grave lay buried five fathoms deep, no doubt, under the blue waters of the Caribbean. And it was for this that he had madly thrown up his Colonial Office appointment, for this that he had wasted Ethel’s money, for this that he had burdened his conscience with a world of lies; all to find in the end that John Cann’s secret was hidden under five fathoms of tropical lagoon, among the scattered and water-logged ruins of Old Port Royal. His fortitude forsook him for a single moment, and burying his face in his two hands, there, under the sweltering mid-day heat of that deadly sandbank, he broke down utterly, and sobbed like a child before the very eyes of the now softened old negro sexton.
IV
It was not for long, however. Cecil Mitford had at least one strong quality — indomitable energy and perseverance. All was not yet lost: if need were, he would hunt for John Cann’s tomb in the very submerged ruins of Old Port Royal. He looked up once more at the puzzled negro, and tried to bear this bitter downfall of all his hopes with manful resignation.
At that very moment, a tall and commanding-looking man, of about sixty, with white hair but erect figure, walked slowly from the cocoa-nut grove on the sand-spit into the dense and tangled precincts of the cemetery. He was a brown man, a mulatto apparently, but his look and bearing showed him at once to be a person of education and distinction in his own fashion. The old sexton rose up respectfully as the stranger approached, and said to him in a very different tone from that in which he had addressed Cecil Mitford,’ Marnin, sah; marnin, Mr. Barclay. Dis here buckra gentleman from Englan’, him come ‘quiring in de cemetry after de grabe of pusson dat dead before de great earthquake. What for him come here like-a-dat on fool’s errand, eh, sah? What for him not larn before him come dat Port Royal all gone drowned in de year 1692?’
The new-comer raised his hat slightly to Cecil Mitford, and spoke at once in the grave gentle voice of an educated and cultivated mulatto. ‘You wanted some antiquarian information about the island, sir; some facts about some one who died before the Port Royal earthquake? You have luckily stumbled across the right man to help you; for I think if anything can be recovered about anybody in Jamaica, I can aid you in recovering it. Whose grave did you want to see?’
Cecil hardly waited to thank the polite stranger, but blurted out at once, ‘The grave of John Cann, who died in 1669.’
The stranger smiled quietly. ‘What! John Cann, the famous buccaneer?’ he said, with evident delight. ‘Are you interested in John Cann?’
‘I am,’ Cecil answered hastily. ‘Do you know anything about him?’
‘I know all about him,’ the tall mulatto replied. ‘All about him in every way. He was not buried at Port Royal at all. He intended to be, and gave orders to that effect; but his servants had him buried quietly elsewhere, on account of some dispute with the Governor of the time being, about some paper which he desired to have placed in his coffin.’
‘Where, where?’ Cecil Mitford gasped out eagerly, clutching at this fresh straw with all the anxiety of a drowning man.
‘At Spanish Town,’ the stranger answered calmly. ‘I know his grave there well to the present day. If you are interested in Jamaican antiquities, and would like to come over and see it, I shall be happy to show you the tomb. That is my name.’ And he handed Cecil Mitford his card, with all the courteous dignity of a born gentleman.
Cecil took the card and read the name on it: ‘The Hon. Charles Barclay, Leigh Caymanas, Spanish Town.’ How his heart bounded again that minute! Proof was accumulating on proof, and luck on luck! After all, he had tracked down John Cann’s grave; and the paper was really there, buried in his coffin. He took the handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his damp brow with a feeling of unspeakable relief. Ethel was saved, and they might still enjoy John Cann’s treasure.
Mr. Barclay sat down beside him on the stone slab, and began talking over all he knew about John Cann’s life and actions. Cecil affected to be interested in all he said, though really he could think of one thing only: the treasure, the treasure, the treasure. But he managed also to let Mr. Barclay see how much he too knew about the old buccaneer; and Mr. Barclay, who was a simple-minded learned enthusiast for all that concerned the antiquities of his native island, was so won over by this display of local knowledge on the part of a stranger and an Englishman, that he ended by inviting Cecil over to his house at Spanish Town, to stop as long as he was able. Cecil gladly accepted the invitation, and that very afternoon, with a beating heart, he took his place in the lumbering train that carried him over to the final goal of his Jamaican expedition.
V
In a corner of the Cathedral graveyard at Spanish Town, overhung by a big spreading mango tree, and thickly covered by prickly scrub of agavé and cactus, the white-haired old mulatto gentleman led Cecil Mitford up to a water-worn and weathered stone, on which a few crumbling letters alone were still visible. Cecil kneeled down on the bare ground, regardless of the sharp cactus spines that stung and tore his flesh, and began clearing the moss and lichen away from the neglected monument. Yes, his host was right! right, right, right, indubitably. The first two letters were Io, then a blank where others were obliterated, and then came ANN. That stood clearly for Iohn Cann. And below he could slowly make out the words, ‘Born at ... vey Tra ... Devon ...’ with an illegible date, ‘Died at P ... Royal, May 12, 1669.’ Oh, great heavens, yes. John Cann’s grave! John Cann’s grave! John Cann’s grave! Beyond any shadow or suspicion of mistake, John Cann and his precious secret lay buried below that mouldering tombstone.
That very evening Cecil Mitford sought out and found the Spanish Town gravedigger. He was a solemn-looking middle-aged black man, with a keen smart face, not the wrong sort of man, Cecil Mitford felt sure, for such a job as the one he contemplated. Cecil didn’t beat about the bush or temporise with him in any way. He went straight to the point, and asked the man outright whether he would undertake to open John Cann’s grave, and find a paper that was hidden in the coffin. The gravedigger stared at him, and answered slowly, ‘I don’t like de job, sah; I don’t like de job. Perhaps Massa John Cann’s ghost, him come and trouble me for dat: I don’t going to do it. What you gib me, sah; how much you gib me?’
Cecil opened his purse and took out of it ten gold sovereigns. ‘I will give you that,’ he said, ‘if you can get me the paper out of John Cann’s coffin.’
The negro’s eyes glistened, but he answered carelessly, ‘I don’t tink I can do it. I don’t want to open grabe by night, and if I open him by day, de magistrates dem will hab me up for desecration ob interment. But I can do dis for you, sah. If you like to wait till some buckra gentleman die — John Cann grabe among de white man side in de grabeyard — I will dig grabe alongside ob John Cann one day, so let you come yourself in de night and take what you like out ob him coffin. I don’t go meddle with coffin myself, to make de John Cann duppy trouble me, and magistrate send me off about me business.’
It was a risky thing to do, certainly, but Cecil Mitford closed with it, and promised the man ten pounds if ever he could recover John Cann’s paper. And then he settled down quietly at Leigh Caymanas with his friendly host, waiting with eager, anxious expectation — till some white person should die at Spanish Town.
What an endless aimless time it seemed to wait before anybody could be comfortably buried! Black people died by the score, of course: there was a smallpox epidemic on, and they went to wakes over one another’s dead bodies in wretched hovels among the back alleys, and caught the infection and sickened and died as fast as the wildest imagination could wish them; but then, they were buried apart by themselves in the pauper part of the Cathedral cemetery. Still, no white man caught the smallpox, and few mulattoes: they had all been vaccinated, and nobody got ill except the poorest negroes. Cecil Mitford waited with almost fiendish eagerness to hear that some prominent white man was dead or dying.
A month, six weeks, two months, went slowly past, and still nobody of consequence in all Spanish Town fell ill or sickened. Talk about tropical diseases! why, the place was abominably, atrociously, outrageously healthy. Cecil Mitford fretted and fumed and worried by himself, wondering whether he would be kept there for ever and ever, waiting till some useless nobody chose to die. The worst of it all was, he could tell nobody his troubles: he had to pretend to look unconcerned and interested, and listen to all old Mr. Barclay’s stories about Maroons and buccaneers as if he really enjoyed them.
At last, after Cecil had been two full months at Spanish Town, he heard one morning with grim satisfaction that yellow fever had broken out at Port Antonio. Now, yellow fever, as he knew full well, attacks only white men, or men of white blood: and Cecil felt sure that before long there would be somebody white dead in Spanish Town. Not that he was really wicked or malevolent or even unfeeling at heart; but his wild desire to discover John Cann’s treasure had now overridden every better instinct of his nature, and had enslaved him, body and soul, till he could think of nothing in any light save that of its bearing on his one mad imagination. So he waited a little longer, still more eagerly than before, till yellow fever should come to Spanish Town.
Sure enough the fever did come in good time, and the very first person who sickened with it was Cecil Mitford. That was a contingency he had never dreamt of, and for the time being it drove John Cann’s treasure almost out of his fevered memory. Yet not entirely, even so, for in his delirium he raved of John Cann and his doubloons till good old Mr. Barclay, nursing at his bedside like a woman, as a tender-hearted mulatto always will nurse any casual young white man, shook his head to himself and muttered gloomily that poor Mr. Mitford had overworked his brain sadly in his minute historical investigations.
For ten days Cecil Mitford hovered fitfully between life and death, and for ten days good old Mr. Barclay waited on him, morning, noon, and night, as devotedly as any mother could wait upon her first-born. At the end of that time he began to mend slowly; and as soon as the crisis was over he forgot forthwith all about his illness, and thought once more of nothing on earth save only John Cann’s treasure. Was anybody else ill of the fever in Spanish Town? Yes, two, but not dangerously. Cecil’s face fell at that saving clause, and in his heart he almost ventured to wish it had been otherwise. He was no murderer, even in thought; but John Cann’s treasure! John Cann’s treasure! John Cann’s treasure! What would not a man venture to do or pray, in order that he might become the possessor of John Cann’s treasure?
As Cecil began to mend, a curious thing happened at Leigh Caymanas, contrary to almost all the previous medical experience of the whole Island. Mr. Barclay, though a full mulatto, of half-black blood, suddenly sickened with the yellow fever. He had worn himself out with nursing Cecil, and the virus seemed to have got into his blood in a way that it would never have done under other circumstances. And when the doctor came to see him, he declared at once that the symptoms were very serious. Cecil hated and loathed himself for the thought; and yet, in a horrid, indefinite way he gloated over the possibility of his kind and hospitable friend’s dying. Mr. Barclay had tended him so carefully that he almost loved him; and yet, with John Cann’s treasure before his very eyes, in a dim, uncertain, awful fashion, he almost looked forward to his dying. But where would he be buried? that was the question. Not, surely, among the poor black people in the pauper corner. A man of his host’s distinction and position would certainly deserve a place among the most exalted white graves — near the body of Governor Modyford, and not far from the tomb of John Cann himself.
