Mr. Fortescue - William Westall (i read a book .txt) 📗

Balthazar was the best man I have ever known.

Shortly after we laid him in the ground I made a visit to the diamond ground, the situation of which the abbe had so fully described that I found it without difficulty. But the undertaking, besides proving much more arduous than I had anticipated, came near to costing me my life. I took with me an _arriero_ and three mules, one carrying an ample supply of food, and, as I thought, of water, for the abbe had told me that a mountain-stream ran through the valley where I was to look for the diamonds. As ill-luck would have it, however, the stream was dried up. Had it not been that I did not like to return empty-handed I should have returned at once, for our stock of water was exhausted and we were two days' journey from Quipai.

I spent a whole day seeking among the stones and pebbles, and my search was so far successful that I picked up two score diamonds, some of considerable size. If I could have stayed longer I might have made a still richer harvest; and I had an idea that there were more under than above ground. But I had stayed too long as it was. The mules were already suffering for want of water; all three perished before we reached Quipai, and the arriero and myself got home only just alive.

Nevertheless, had not Angelo put her veto on the project, I should have made another visit to the place, provided with a sufficiency of water for the double journey. I, moreover, thought that with time and proper tools I could find water on the spot. However, I went not again, and I renounced my design all the more willingly as I knew that the diamonds I had already found were a fortune in themselves. I added them to my collection of minerals which I kept in my cabinet at Alta Vista. My Quipais being honest and knowing nothing whatever of precious stones I had no fear of robbers.

For several years after Balthazar's death nothing occurred to disturb the even tenor of our way, and I had almost forgotten his warnings, and that we were potentially "rich beyond the dreams of avarice," when one day a runner brought word that two men had landed on the coasts and were on the way to San Cristobal.

This was startling news, and I questioned the messenger closely, but all he could tell me was that the strangers had arrived in a small boat, half famished and terribly thirsty, and had asked, in broken Spanish, to be taken to the chief of the country, and that he had been sent on to inform me of their coming.

"The abbe!" exclaimed Angela, "you remember what he said about danger from the sea."

"Yes; but there is nothing to fear from two hungry men in a small boat--as I judge from the runner's account, shipwrecked mariners."

"I don't know; there's no telling, they may be followed by others, and unless we keep them here--"

"If necessary we must keep them here; as, however, they are evidently not Spaniards it may not be necessary. But as to that I can form no opinion till I have seen and questioned them."

We were still talking about them, for the incident was both suggestive and exciting, when the strangers were brought in. As I expected, they were seamen, in appearance regular old salts. One was middle-sized, broad built, brawny, and large-limbed--a squat Hercules, with big red whiskers, earrings and a pig-tail. His companion was taller and less sturdy, his black locks hung in ringlets on either side of a swarthy, hairless face, and the arms and hands of both, as also their breasts were extensively tattooed.

Their surprise on beholding Angela and me was almost ludicrous. They might have been expecting to see a copper-colored cacique dressed in war-paint and adorned with scalps.

"White! By the piper that played before Moses, white!" muttered the red-whiskered man. "Who'd ha' thought it! A squaw in petticoats, too, with a gold chain round her neck! Where the hangmant have we got to?"

"You are English?" I said, quietly.

"Well, I'll be--yes, sir! I'm English, name of Yawl, Bill Yawl, sir, of the port of Liverpool, at your service. My mate, here, he's a--"

"I'll tell my own tale, if you please, Bill Yawl," interrupted the other as I thought rather peremptorily. "My name is Kidd, and I'm a native of Barbadoes in the West Indies, by calling, a mariner, and late second mate of the brig Sulky Sail, Jones, master, bound from Liverpool to Lima, with a cargo of hardware and cotton goods."

"And what has become of the Sulky Sail?"

"She went to the bottom, sir, three days ago."

"But there has been no bad weather, lately."

"Not lately. But we made very bad weather rounding the Horn, and the ship sprang a leak, and though, by throwing cargo overboard, and working hard at the pumps, we managed to keep her afloat nearly a month; she foundered at last."

"And are you the only survivors?"

"No, sir; the master and most of the crew got away in the long boat. But as the ship went down the dinghy was swamped. Bill and me managed to right her and get aboard again, but the others as was with us got drowned."

"And the long boat?"

"We lost each other in the night, and, having no water, and only a tin of biscuits, Bill and me made straight for the coast, and landed in the little cove down below this morning. All we have is what we stand up in. And we shall feel much obliged if you will kindly give us food and shelter until such time as we can get away."

On this I assured Mr. Kidd that I was sorry for their misfortune, and would gladly find them food and lodging, and whatever else they might require, but as for getting away, I did not see how that was possible, unless by sea, and in their own dinghy.

"We are very grateful for your kindness, sir; but I don't think we should much like to make another voyage in the dinghy."

"She ain't seaworthy," growled Yawl, "you've to bale all the time, and if it came on to blow she'd turn turtle in half a minute."

"May be some vessel will be touching here, sir," suggested Kidd.

"Vessels never do touch here, except to be dashed in pieces against the rocks."

"Well, I suppose we shall have to wait till a chance happens out. This seems a nice place, and we are in no hurry, if you aren't."

So the two castaways became my guests; and if they waited to be taken off by a passing ship they were likely to remain my guests as long as they lived.

For a few days they rambled about the place with their hands in their pockets and cigars (with which I supplied them liberally) in their mouths. But after a while time began to hang heavy on their hands, and one day they came to me with a proposal.

"We are tired of doing nothing, Mr. Fortescue," said Kidd.

"It is the hardest work I ever put my hand to, and not a grog-shop in the place," interposed Yawl.

"Hold your jaw, Bill, and let me say my say out. We are tired of doing nothing, and if you like we will build you a sloop."

"A sloop! To go away in, I suppose?"

"That is as you please, sir. Anyhow, a sloop, say of fifteen or twenty tons, would be very useful. You might take a sail with your lady now and again, and explore the coast. Yawl has been both ship's carpenter and bo'son--he'll boss the job; and I'm a very fair amateur cabinet-maker. If you want anything in that line doing at your house, sir, I shall be glad to do it for you."

The project pleased me; an occasional cruise would be an agreeable diversion, and I assented to Kidd's proposal without hesitation. There was as much wreckage lying on the cliff as would build a man-of-war, and a small cove at the foot of the oasis where the sloop could lie safely at anchor.

So the work was taken in hand, some of my own people helping, and after several months' labor the Angela, as I proposed to call her, was launched. She had a comfortable little cabin and so soon as she was masted and rigged would be ready for sea.

In the mean time I asked Kidd to superintend some alterations I was making at Alta Vista, and among other things construct larger cabinets for my mineral and entomological specimens. He did the work quite to my satisfaction, but before it was well finished I made a portentous discovery--several of my diamonds were missing. There could be no doubt about it, for I knew the number to a nicety, and had counted them over and over again. Neither could there be any doubt that Kidd was the thief. Besides my wife, myself, and one or two of our servants, no one else had been in the room; and our own people would not have taken the trouble to pick up a diamond from the ground, much less steal one from my house.

My first impulse was to accuse Kidd of the theft and have him searched. And then I reflected that I was almost as much to blame as himself. Assuming that he knew something of the value of precious stones, I had exposed him to temptation by leaving so many and of so great value in an open drawer. He might well suppose that I set no store by them, and that half a dozen or so would never be missed. So I decided to keep silence for the present and keep a watch on Mr. Kidd's movements. It might be that he and Yawl were thinking to steal a march on me and sail away secretly with the sloop, and perhaps something else. They had both struck up rather close friendships with native women.

But as I did not want to lose any more of my diamonds, and there was no place at Alta Vista where they would be safe so long as Kidd was on the premises, I put them in a bag in the inside pocket of a quilted vest which I always wore on my mountain excursions, my intention being to take them on the following day down to San Cristobal and bestow them in a secure hiding-place.

I little knew that I should never see San Cristobal again.


CHAPTER XXX.

THE QUENCHING OF QUIPAI.

The cottage at Alta Vista had expanded little by little into a long, single storied flat-roofed house, shaded by palm-trees and set in a fair garden, which looked all the brighter from its contrast with the brown and herbless hill-sides that uprose around it.

In the after part of the day on which I discovered the theft, Angela and myself were sitting under the veranda, which fronted the house and commanded a view of the great reservoir, the oasis and the ocean. She was reading aloud a favorite chapter in "Don Quixote," one of the few books we possessed. I was smoking.

Angela read well; her pronunciation of Spanish was faultless, and I always took particular pleasure in hearing her read the idiomatic Castilian of Cervantes. Nevertheless, my mind wandered; and, try as I might, I could not help thinking more of the theft of the