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Foul Play, a novel by Charles Reade |
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Chapter 18 |
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_ CHAPTER XVIII BUT this utter prostration of his confederate began to alarm Wylie, and rouse him to exertion. Certainly, he was very sorry for what he had done, and would have undone it and forfeited his three thousand pounds in a moment, if he could. But, as he could not undo the crime, he was all the more determined to reap the reward. Why, that three thousand pounds, for aught he knew, was the price of his soul; and he was not the man to let his soul go gratis. He finished the rest of the brandy, and went after his men, to keep them true to him by promises; but the next day he came to the office in Fenchurch Street, and asked anxiously for Wardlaw. Wardlaw had not arrived. He waited, but the merchant never came; and Michael told him with considerable anxiety that this was the first time his young master had missed coming this five years. In course of the day, several underwriters came in, with long faces, to verify the report, which had now reached Lloyd's, that the _Proserpine_ had foundered at sea. "It is too true," said Michael; "and poor Mr. Wylie here has barely escaped with his life. He was mate of the ship, gentlemen." Upon this, each visitor questioned Wylie, and Wylie returned the same smooth answer to all inquiries. One heavy gale after another had so tried the ship that her seams had opened, and let in more water than all the exertions of the crew and passengers could discharge; at last, they had taken to the boats; the long-boat had been picked up; the cutter had never been heard of since. They nearly all asked after the ship's log. "I have got it safe at home," said he. It was in his pocket all the time. Some asked him where the other survivors were. He told them five had shipped on board the _Maria,_ and three were with him at Poplar, one disabled by the hardships they had all endured. One or two complained angrily of Mr. Wardlaw's absence at such a time. "Well, good gentlemen," said Wylie, "I'll tell ye. Mr. Wardlaw's sweetheart was aboard the ship. He is a'most broken-hearted. He vallied her more than all the gold, that you may take your oath on." This stroke, coming from a rough fellow in a pea-jacket, who looked as simple as he was cunning, silenced remonstrance, and went far to disarm suspicion; and so pleased Michael Penfold that he said, "Mr. Wylie, you are interested in this business, would you mind going to Mr. Wardlaw's house and asking what we are to do next? I'll give you his address and a line begging him to make an effort and see you. Business is the heart's best ointment. Eh, dear Mr. Wylie, I have known grief, too; and I think I should have gone mad when they sent my poor son away, but for business, especially the summing up of long columns, etc." Wylie called at the house in Russell Square, and asked to see Mr. Wardlaw. The servant shook his head. "You can't see him; he is very ill." "Very ill?" said Wylie. "I'm sorry for that. Well, but I shan't make him any worse; and Mr. Penfold says I must see him. It is very particular, I tell you. He won't thank you for refusing me, when he comes to hear of it." He said this very seriously; and the servant, after a short hesitation, begged him to sit down in the passage a moment. He then went into the dining-room, and shortly reappeared, holding the door open. Out came, not Wardlaw junior, but Wardlaw senior. "My son is in no condition to receive you," said he, gravely; "but I am at your service. What is your business?" Wylie was taken off his guard, and stammered out something about the _Shannon._ "The _Shannon!_ What have you to do with her? You belong to the _Proserpine."_ "Ay, sir; but I had his orders to ship forty chests of lead and smelted copper on board the _Shannon."_ "Well?" "Ye see, sir," said Wylie, "Mr. Wardlaw was particular about them, and I feel responsible like, having shipped them aboard another vessel." "Have you not the captain's receipt?" "That I have, sir, at home. But you could hardly read it for salt water." "Well," said Wardlaw senior, "I will direct our agent at Liverpool to look after them, and send them up at once to my cellars in Fenchurch Street. Forty chests of lead and copper, I think you said." And he took a note of this directly. Wylie was not a little discomfited at this unexpected turn things had taken; but he held his tongue now, for fear of making bad worse. Wardlaw senior went on to say that he should have to conduct the business of the firm for a time, in spite of his old age and failing health. This announcement made Wylie perspire with anxiety, and his three thousand pounds seemed to melt away from him. "But never mind," said old Wardlaw; "I am very glad you came. In fact, you are the very man I wanted to see. My poor afflicted friend has asked after you several times. Be good enough to follow me." He led the way into the dining-room, and there sat the sad father in all the quiet dignity of calm, unfathomable sorrow. Another gentleman stood upon the rug with his back to the fire, waiting for Mr. Wardlaw; this was the family physician, who had just come down from Arthur's bedroom, and had entered by another door through the drawing-room. "Well, doctor," said Wardlaw, anxiously, "what is your report?" "Not so good as I could wish; but nothing to excite immediate alarm. Overtaxed brain, sir, weakened and unable to support this calamity. However, we have reduced the fever; the symptoms of delirium have been checked, and I think we shall escape brain fever if he is kept quiet. I could not have said as much this morning." The doctor then took his leave, with a promise to call next morning; and, as soon as he was gone, Wardlaw turned to General Rolleston, and said, "Here _is_ Wylie, sir. Come forward, my man, and speak to the general. He wants to know if you can point out to him on the chart the very spot where the _Proserpine_ was lost?" "Well, sir," said Wylie, "I think I could." The great chart of the Pacific was then spread out upon the table, and rarely has a chart been examined as this was, with the bleeding heart as well as the straining eye. The rough sailor became an oracle; the others hung upon his words, and followed his brown finger on the chart with fearful interest. "Ye see, sir," said he, addressing the old merchant--for there was something on his mind that made him avoid speaking directly to General Rolleston--"when we came out of Sydney, the wind being south and by west, Hudson took the northerly course instead of running through Cook's Straits. The weather freshened from the same quarter, so that, with one thing and another, by when we were a month out, she was five hundred miles or so nor'ard of her true course. But that wasn't all; when the leak gained on us, Hudson ran the ship three hundred miles by my reckoning to the nor'east; and, I remember, the day before she foundered, he told me she was in latitude forty, and Easter Island bearing due north." "Here is the spot, then," said General Rolleston, and placed his finger on the spot. "Ay, sir," said Wylie, addressing the merchant; "but she ran about eighty-five miles after that, on a northerly course--no--wind on her starboard quarter--and, being deep in the water, she'd make lee way--say eighty-two miles, nor'east by east." The general took eighty-two miles off the scale, with a pair of dividers, and set out that distance on the chart. He held the instrument fixed on the point thus obtained. Wylie eyed the point, and, after a moment's consideration, nodded his head. "There, or thereabouts," he said, in a low voice, and looking at the merchant. A pause ensued, and the two old men examined the speck pricked on the map, as if it were the waters covering the _Proserpine._ "Now, sir," said Rolleston, "trace the course of the boats;" and he handed Wylie a pencil. The sailor slowly averted his head, but stretched out his hand and took it, and traced two lines, the one short and straight, running nearly northeast. "That's the way the cutter headed when we lost her in the night." The other line ran parallel to the first for half an inch, then, turning, bent backward and ran due south. "This was our course," said Wylie. General Rolleston looked up, and said, "Why did you desert the cutter?" The mate looked at old Wardlaw, and, after some hesitation, replied: "After we lost sight of her the men with me declared that we could not reach either Juan Fernandez or Valparaiso with our stock of provisions, and insisted on standing for the sea-track of Australian liners between the Horn and Sydney." This explanation was received in dead silence. Wylie fidgeted, and his eye wandered round the room. General Rolleston applied his compasses to the chart. "I find that the _Proserpine_ was not one thousand miles from Easter Island. Why did you not make for that land?" "We had no charts, sir," said Wylie to the merchant, "and I'm no navigator." "I see no land laid down hereaway, northeast of the spot where the ship went down." "No," replied Wylie, "that's what the men said when they made me 'bout ship." "Then why did you lead the way northeast at all?" "I'm no navigator," answered the man sullenly. He then suddenly stammered out: "Ask my men what we went through. Why, sir" (to Wardlaw), "I can hardly believe that I am alive, and sit here talking to you about this cursed business. And nobody offers me a drop of anything." Wardlaw poured him out a tumbler of wine. His brown hand trembled a little, and he gulped the wine down like water. General Rolleston gave Mr. Wardlaw a look, and Wylie was dismissed. He slouched down the street all in a cold perspiration; but still clinging to his three thousand pounds, though small was now his hope of ever seeing it. When he was gone General Rolleston paced that large and gloomy room in silence. Wardlaw eyed him with the greatest interest, but avoided speaking to him. At last he stopped short, and stood erect, as veterans halt, and pointed down at the chart. "I'll start at once for that spot," said he. "I'll go in the next ship bound to Valparaiso: there I'll charter a small vessel, and ransack those waters for some trace of my poor lost girl." "Can you think of no better way than that?" said old Wardlaw, gently, and with a slight tone of reproach. "No--not at this moment. Oh, yes, by the by, the _Greyhound_ and _Dreadnaught_ are going out to survey the islands of the Pacific. I have interest enough to get a berth in the _Greyhound."_ "What! go in a government ship! under the orders of a man, under the orders of another man, under the orders of a board. Why, if you heard our poor girl was alive upon a rock, the _Dreadnaught_ would be sure to run up a bunch of red-tape to the fore that moment to recall the _Greyhound,_ and the _Greyhound_ would go back. No," said he, rising suddenly, and confronting the general, and with the color mounting for once in his sallow face, "you sail in no bottom but one freighted by Wardlaw & Son, and the captain shall be under no orders but yours. We have bought the steam-sloop _Springbok_, seven hundred tons. I'll victual her for a year, man her well, and you shall go out in her in less than a week. I give you my hand on that." They grasped hands. But this sudden warmth and tenderness, coming from a man habitually cold, overpowered the stout general. "What, sir," he faltered; "your own son lies in danger, yet your heart goes so with me--such goodness--it is too much for me." "No, no," faltered the merchant, affected in his turn; "it is nothing. Your poor girl was coming home in that cursed ship to marry my son. Yes, he lies ill for love of her; God help him and me too; but you most of all. Don't, general; don't! We have got work to do; we must be brave, sir; brave, I say, and compose ourselves. Ah, my friend, you and I are of one age; and this is a heavy blow for us. And we are friends no more; it has made us brothers. She was to be my child as well as yours; well, now she _is_ my child, and our hearts they bleed together." At this, the truth must be told, the two stout old men embraced one another like two women, and cried together a little.
In a week the _Springbok_ steamed down the Channel on an errand inspired by love, not reason; to cross one mighty ocean, and grope for a lost daughter in another. _ |
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