Collected works of j s f.., p.600
Collected Works of J S Fletcher, page 600
In this surmise I was correct enough. After he had pulled a mile or so from the mouth of the river, Getch stepped a mast and set a small sail, and there being a nice breeze blowing from land, we bowled merrily away in the direction of the island, and before long saw its dark bulk showing ahead. All this time our two captors preserved a strict and gloomy silence; indeed, they neither exchanged a word between themselves nor spoke to us until we were close on our destination. Then Getch made some remark to Uncle Joseph about trying the old landing-place, and after commanding me to give a hand with the sail, he took the tiller himself and steered the boat into a sort of passage between high black rocks, finally bringing us alongside a quay which I have no doubt had been artificially fashioned in the monastic days for the convenience of the inhabitants.
It was quiet enough on that island; there was, indeed, a sense of death like quietness on it, and I think that both Pepita and myself stepped ashore feeling as if we were about to be immured in a tomb. But Getch gave us no time for these or any other thoughts; now that we were landed, he seemed to assert himself as chief authority and began to order us all about, Uncle Joseph included. We had to help in unloading the boat, and then in carrying the various packages, and, just as I had expected, Getch directed us to take them up to the tower in the ruins; we made two or three journeys before we had cleared everything. They were not heavy packages — I guessed, and rightly, that they contained food and drink. But there were also plenty of rugs, cushions, old coats, and the like; Uncle Joseph carried most of these, and when we had got up the last of the parcels he flung an armful towards me.
“You must just do what you can to make the young lady a bit of a nest, Benjamin,” he said in his suavest tones. “It’s not what you might call a boo-dwaw, this, but we must make the best of circumstances, and, fortunately, the night’s warm and this here chamber is dry. And in the morning we’ll see what we can do to make ourselves a bit more comfortable.”
We were in a lower room of the tower, and Getch had lighted a lantern, by the light of which, small as its gleam was in that cavernous space, we could see to do things. I made a couch for Pepita in the cleanest corner I could find, and persuaded her to lie down. And I’ll say this for Uncle Joseph — he was kindly and considerate enough to her, suggesting that she might like something to eat and ordering me to see what I could find for her. But Pepita wanted nothing — except that I should stay near her. And stay near her I did, making shift as well as I could with a couple of horse-rugs, and I was thankful that within a few minutes she was fast asleep. I, myself, would gladly have slept, for very weariness, but I was too anxious and uneasy. Somehow, I felt that we had little to fear from Uncle Joseph, who, however deep and villainous he might be, did not seem inclined to cruelty, but I had no such assurance about Getch, who, I felt sure, would have no compunction about wringing our necks to save his own. And sitting near Pepita’s improvised couch, with my back to the wall, I watched him, wondering all the time if we were going to be under his surveillance, and for how long. There was no sign of his going away then. He had so disposed the lantern that its light could not penetrate through any aperture in the walls, of which, to be sure, there were not many and what there were lay high above our heads, and he and Uncle Joseph sat near it, talking in low tones. Getch had opened a bottle of spirits and broached a cask of water; I watched them drinking and smoking for some time. They were very quiet and quite orderly; from their attitude and behaviour they might have been discussing some peaceful domestic question. And suddenly, without knowing that I was on the verge of it, I dropped headlong into the abyss of sleep. When I woke again, just as suddenly, there was no sign of Getch. The morning sun was shining through the leadless window-places high up in the eastern wall, and I heard the crying of sea-birds and chatter of choughs, hovering around the parapet of the tower. Pepita was still fast asleep in her corner; her face, rosy-pink, half-buried in the crook of her arm; her breath coming softly and regularly. And over in his corner, half-buried in rugs and wrappings, his big bulk propped up against the angle of the wall, Uncle Joseph was asleep, too — asleep and snoring gently. His hands were clasped across his stomach; his mouth was half-open. And there, near him, was the lantern, extinguished, and the spirit-bottle, and the empty glasses — but no Getch.
I got quietly to my feet, stiff and aching from the hardness of my couch, and looked about me. In the gloom of the night I had not been able to get any very accurate idea of the exact nature of the things we had brought up from the boat. But I now saw that, whatever the reason of this flight to the island might be, Uncle Joseph was well provisioned. There was a great deal of canned stuff, meats, fruits; there was bread sufficient to last for several days; there were two cases of bottled beer and half-a-dozen bottles of spirits; it occasioned me a good deal of disquietude to see all this, for it seemed to argue that we might be kept in captivity for some time. Nor was I much comforted when I also saw tea, coffee, and sugar, and found a couple of square tins filled with cakes — these doubtless would be welcome to Pepita, but they, too, foreshadowed a longer residence on that island than I desired.
But it was something to be free of Getch. Relieved of his presence, I might possibly circumvent Uncle Joseph and contrive to signal some passing vessel. Unfortunately, as I knew from lifelong experience of that coast, vessels scarcely ever came near Melsie Island — still, there might be a chance. I went out to have a look round. And anxious to be absolutely certain about Getch, I first directed my steps to the landing place amongst the rocks, to see if his boat was still there. It wasn’t — and I knew then that he had gone in the night, and that we three had the island to ourselves.
CHAPTER XVI. THE BROWN HAND
THAT WAS A summer morning of great beauty, by land and sea, and under any circumstances, I should have rejoiced in my surroundings. The sun was already well up in a cloudless sky, the deep blue of which was reflected in the lightly dancing waves all round me — dancing under the gentle stirrings of a soft wind that blew shoreward from the south and drove the surface waters to a long ripple of white against the dark outline of the mainland, three miles away. The atmosphere was peculiarly clear, and I could see all the places along the coast, and pick out the bolder features of the island hills: as I stood there, gazing shoreward, I could have named a dozen such features, from the grey tower of our own parish church at Middlebourne to the great grove of beech on Belconbury Beacon, fifteen miles away to the eastward, and to the high buildings and tall ships’ masts in the docks at Kingshaven, half that distance to the West. But close as all these things looked in that pellucid morning air, I felt that for all practical purposes Pepita and I — for the time being, at any rate — were as far off them as if we had been in some island of the Pacific. There were reasons for that feeling, and good ones, due to the peculiar nature of the coast in our neighbourhood. For some distance from the shore line the sea thereabouts was very shallow; the shallow waters extended for many miles into the Channel. And Kingshaven itself could only be entered by a passage running far away from Melsie Island, while our own light craft at Middlebourne and Wreddlesham, coming out from thence to the fishing grounds, could only get in or out by another equally remote on the other side. Melsie Island, in short, was out of the way of craft of any sort: from any of the big ships going into Kingshaven, or coming out of it, it would look like a speck on the water; to the fishing boats, passing it at some considerable distance on its eastern side, it had no significance. If it had not been for its absolute remoteness from any sea-route it would certainly have had a warning light, if not a permanent light-house on it; it had neither, for the reason that there was no likelihood whatever of any ship, big or little, getting so much out of its course as to come anywhere near it. And so I knew that there was small chance of anybody coming to rescue Pepita and myself from this strangely-brought-about imprisonment. As far as I knew, nobody knew that Getch had brought us here, though it might be that our departure from the Shooting Star, in company with Uncle Joseph, had been witnessed by Mandhu Khan. But on that we could not count — and there was always the possibility that the Hindu man-servant was in league with Uncle Joseph and Getch, and had come spying at our prison-window on their behalf, just to see what we were doing. We could count on nothing. No doubt Captain Marigold was actively on the search for his daughter, and I was sure that Keziah would not let her tongue rest in demanding me — I felt, too, that Cherry would bestir himself in seeking for both. But who would dream of our having been carried off to this place? There we were — straight in front of their noses! — and, as I have said, we might as well have been in Samoa.
But why had we been brought there at all? — that was the question which had been forcing itself upon me from the moment in which Getch bundled me, unceremoniously, into his boat. On the mere surface of things, it did not seem very difficult to get an answer to this question. Whether he had actually stolen it or not, there was no doubt whatever — in my mind, anyway — that my precious kinsman, Uncle Joseph Krevin, was in possession of the Kang-he vase, nor that the rascally landlord of the Shooting Star was his accomplice. It seemed to me, putting together the various things of which I was aware, that the whole business worked itself out something like this — Uncle Joseph, the murdered man, Cousins, and Getch were accomplices in the plot to rob Miss Ellingham of her exceedingly valuable piece of Chinese vase, for their own profit. Probably Cousins effected the actual theft, and handed over the vase to Uncle Joseph in the fish-bag found by Keziah under our best bedroom dressing-table: Uncle Joseph, in the privacy of that sacred chamber, transferred the loot to his own venerable brown bag. Meanwhile, down there at Gallowstree Point, Cousins was murdered — why and by whom Heaven only knew! But Keziah and I told Uncle Joseph that Cousins was murdered — and Uncle Joseph cleared out, bag and all. I thought — piecing the bits together in my mental review — that he went away to Fliman’s End, and was there, in the grey morning, taken off in a boat by Getch, and carried across the creek, past the scene of the murder and Middlebourne Grange, to the Shooting Star at Wreddlesham. No doubt he thought he could get away from Wreddlesham during that day, or on the succeeding night — no doubt, too, he and his host found that he couldn’t, every neighbouring railway station and bus route being watched. So at the Shooting Star he remained, snug and safe — until Pepita and I walked in. He was safe no longer, then — and so Getch had conveyed him here, to Melsie Island, and us with him. But . . . how did he expect to escape from the island, and when?
I was not re-assured about our prospects of escape when, presently, I went back to the tower. Pepita, who seemed to have a genius for sound slumber under any conditions, was still fast asleep in her corner. But Uncle Joseph was wide awake, and when I entered, was looking about him, regarding the various packages with a speculative eye. He nodded at me, in quite friendly fashion.
“I hope you’ve passed a comfortable night, Benjamin?” he remarked. “The young lady, I see, is still in the land of Nod, as they call it. As for me, I’ve slept in a many better places, and in a many worse. I think, if I were you, Benjamin, my lad, I should see about getting ready a bit o’ something to eat.”
He nodded at the boxes and cases we had carried ashore, and it was when I began to investigate their contents that I felt doubts about the term, long or short, of our detention on the island. We were certainly provisioned for some time; there was enough stuff, eatable and drinkable, to last the three of us for at any rate several days: indeed, it appeared to me that somebody, Uncle Joseph, or Getch, or the two of them combined, or the iron-faced housekeeper-woman at the Shooting Star, had exercised a good deal of care and forethought in furnishing our commissariat department. And there was not only the stuff to eat, but the materials wherewith to cook it — spirit-stoves, kettles, frying-pans, and the like: Uncle Joseph seemed to take a deep interest in all of them.
“I think I should advise one o’ them cold tongues this morning, Benjamin,” he said, thoughtfully. “They’re toothsome and tender, ready for table, and easy opened: we can try something more ambitious another time, as we get accustomed to fending for ourselves. You’re no doubt of a domesticated turn, Benjamin?”
I gave that question the go-by, though I proceeded, being hungry, to get breakfast ready.
“How long do you suppose, or am I to understand, that we’re going to have to fend for ourselves?” I asked. “I should like to know.”
“I couldn’t say, Benjamin,” he answered meekly. “I’ve no idea! It depends on circumstances, you see, and you’re no doubt well aware, youthful though you are, that circumstances is queer things — we can’t always control ’em.”
“I certainly can’t control mine!” I retorted, as I lighted the spirit-stove, and filled the kettle from a keg of water which had come with the other goods. “Or I shouldn’t have been here!”
“Well, well, and I shouldn’t either, if I could control mine, Benjamin!” he said. “Leastways, my present unfort’nate ones. But a deal of experience of life, Benjamin, has taught me that similar experience’ll doubtless teach you — that circumstances was made to make the best of. There’s excellent coffee in that tin, Benjamin, and milk and sugar somewheres, and we shan’t have to eat with our fingers, neither. I’ll sniff the morning air outside a bit while you make the repast ready.”
He got up from his improvised but quite comfortable couch, and moved off to the open doorway. And I saw then that he had made a pillow of his old brown bag — the bag which had been deposited in our porch at midnight, at the very beginning of all these happenings. He had slept on it; no doubt to keep it close to him, and he kept it close to him now, for he carried it under his left arm. Through the open doorway I saw him standing with it, there closely held, as he stood on the platform of rocky land outside the tower, looking from one point of the compass to another; he continued to hold it there all the time he stood or strolled about there, and he had it still folded in his arm when he came back. And I said to myself on seeing this that I was quite willing to lay any odds, however extravagant in figure, that packed within that beastly old bag was the Kang-he vase!
I got breakfast ready, taking care that it was a good one, and awoke Pepita. Once fairly awake and realising the situation, she seemed disposed to take the whole thing as not a bad joke and the breakfast as a picnic, and her light-heartedness was uncommonly welcome. She began to help me in laying things out — but presently she seemed to remember something, and looked round with another expression in her face.
“Ben!” she whispered. “I see your fat old uncle out there — but where’s the man from the inn — the bad man?”
I was cynically amused at her differentiation between Uncle Joseph and Getch; my own opinion was that if it came to a question of essence and quality there was precious little of choice.
“He’s hopped it, Pepita!” said I. “Gone in the night, I think; anyway, he’d gone when I woke. We’re alone with my respected uncle.”
“I don’t mind him, Ben,” she remarked. “I don’t think he’s such a bad sort. But that other man frightened me. Have you found out what they brought us here for, Ben?”
“No!” said I. “But I know what I think, and I’ll tell you after. Look here! — you take a tip from me, Pepita. Just behave as if you were taking all this as a sort of picnic, and don’t show any fear of the old chap outside there — I shan’t! We’ve got to stick it out in his company, and we may as well fall in with his idea that we should be friendly. After all, we’re not going to starve, and Uncle Joseph won’t cut our throats — at least, I think not — and we’re bound to be rescued, so we may as well make the best of it.”
“Oh, I’m all right, Ben!” she agreed, cheerfully. “And I’m not afraid of Uncle Joseph — not I! I could get round him, Ben — if I wanted!”
There was no need for her to play any tricks of that sort. Uncle Joseph, presently returning, lured, no doubt, by the pleasant aroma of the hot coffee, was as bland and polite to her as if she had been a princess and he a courtier. He congratulated her on her bright eyes and rosy cheeks, and treated me to a solemn disquisition on the virtues of early retirement and early rising. At breakfast he gave Pepita the best slices of the tongue and the cream off the milk, and commanded me to open a jar of raspberry jam — young ladies, he observed, were partial to sweet things, and as we had one in our company we must treat her according. Jailer or no jailer, Uncle Joseph was exceedingly complaisant, and reminded me of nothing so much as a Sunday School Superintendent, presiding over a treat to the best boys and girls. And if he had any anxiety about his situation, it certainly had no effect on his appetite, for he ate and drank with gusto.
This strange meal came to an end, and while Uncle Joseph — who said grace devoutly, as if quite accustomed to such ritual, as I have no doubt he was — filled and lighted his pipe, Pepita and I, in our rôle of faithful attendants, began to clear up the things. But there arose a difficulty.
“Where are we going to find water to wash up with?” said I. “We can’t go on using what’s in that keg: it’ll be done in no time. And for that matter, where are we going to get drinking water when this is finished?”
I looked at Uncle Joseph, as if he were an authority, and he nodded in ready response.
“Just so, Benjamin,” he replied. “Water is what we cannot do without. But I made inquiry on that there point. Of Mr. Getch, of course. Mr. Getch is a clever man, Benjamin — a man of ideas! Mr. Getch pointed out that once upon a time this here island was tenanted by monks. This very tower, as we’re a-sitting in, is the tower of their church. Monks, Benjamin, is men. Where men lives, there must be water — that’s how Mr. Getch argued it, and I take it to ha’ been very clever of him. There’ll be water somewheres on this island, Benjamin — must be, ‘cause o’ the monks!”
“It’s three hundred and fifty years, at least, since there were any monks here!” I exclaimed, furbishing up my recollections of history. “Nearer four hundred if anything, and I don’t think anybody’s ever lived here since. If they had a well, or a spring, how do you suppose we can find it?”
