“Bless God for that!” And in the captain’s eyes tears glistened. “That’s wonderful for me to hear, in this room where all those relics of the past—that kris and everything—can’t help reminding me of other and worse days. A wonderful, blessèd thing to hear!”
“Well, I’m glad it is, gramp,” said Hal, “and it’s every bit true. On my honor as a gentleman, it is! From to-day I’m going to stand on my own feet and be a man. You don’t know what I’ve been doing already to give myself a start in life, but if you did, you’d be wonderfully surprised. What I’m still going to do will certainly surprise you more!”
“Lord above, Hal, but you’re the right stuff after all!” exclaimed Captain Briggs, the tears now coursing freely. “Oh, if you could only realize what all this means for me after all the years of sacrifice and hopes and fears. We came pretty nigh shipwreck on the reefs, didn’t we, boy? But it’s all right. It’s all right now at last!”
“It surely is. And I’m certainly going to surprise you and Laura and everybody.”
“Kneel down beside me, just a minute, boy, and then I’ll go to sleep again.”
Hal, making a wry face to himself, knelt by the bedside. Old Briggs, with one arm, drew him close. The other hand stroked back Hal’s thick, wet hair with a touch that love made gentle as a woman’s.
“This is a day of days to me,” he whispered. “A wonderful blessèd day! God guide and keep you, forever and ever. Amen!”
He sighed deeply and relaxed. His eyes drooped shut. Hal pulled the blankets up and got to his feet, peering down with eyes of malice.
A moment he stood there while the wind gusted against the house, the rain sprayed along the porch, and branches whipped the roof.
Then, with a smile of infernal triumph, he turned.
“Cinch!” he muttered, as he left the cabin and made his way up-stairs. “Why, it’s like taking candy from a baby. He’ll sleep for hours now. But won’t it jar the old geezer when his pipe goes out, to-night? Just won’t it, though?”
With silent laughter Hal reached his room, where, without delay, he started on his final preparations for events now swiftly impending.
Over all the heavens—a blind, gray face of wrath—seemed peering down. But on that face was now no laughter.
Even for Vishnu the Avenger some things must be too terrible.
CHAPTER XXXVI
THE DOCTOR SPEAKS
Hal had been at work five minutes when he was startled by a sharp knock. The door was flung open in no gentle manner.
Dr. Filhiol, leaning on his cane, confronted him. Hal knew trouble lay dead ahead. Standing there in shirt-sleeves, with litter and confusion of packing all about, and two half-filled suit-cases on a couple of chairs, Hal frowned angrily.
“You’ve got a nerve to butt in like this!” he growled. “What d’ you want now?”
“I want to talk to you, sir.”
“I’ve got no time to waste on nonsense!”
“You’ve got time to talk to me, and talk to me you’re going to,” returned the doctor. “This is no nonsense.” He came in and shut the door. The scent of liquor met his nostrils. “A young man who’s been responsible for the things you have, has certainly got time to answer me!”
Awed by the physician’s cold determination, and with fear at heart—for might not Filhiol know about the stolen money?—Hal moderated his defiance. This old man must be kept quiet for a few hours yet; Hal must have a few hours.
“You’re assuming too much authority for a stranger,” said Hal, sullenly. “I never knew before that a gentleman would interfere in this way.”
“Probably not, when dealing with a gentleman,” retorted Filhiol, “but this case is different. My acquaintance with your grandfather dates back more than half a century, and when my duty requires me to speak, no young bully like you is going to stop me. No, you needn’t double your fist, or look daggers, because I’m not in the least afraid of you, sir. And I’m not going to mince matters with you. What did you do with the captain’s five hundred dollars?”
Hal felt himself lost. He had effectually closed Ezra’s mouth, but now here stood the doctor, accusing him. One moment he had the impulse to do murder; but now that all things were in readiness for his flight, he realized violence would be a fatal error. His only hope lay in diplomacy.
“What five hundred dollars?”
“You know very well what five hundred! Come, what did you do with it?”
“Really, Dr. Filhiol, this is a most astonishing accusation!” said Hal. “I don’t know anything about any five hundred. Is that amount gone?”
“You know very well it’s gone!”
“I know nothing of the kind! How should I?”
“You can’t fool me, young man!” exclaimed the doctor hotly. He raised his cane in menace.
“Put that stick down, sir,” said Hal in a wicked voice. “No man living can threaten me with a stick and get way with it. I tell you I don’t know anything about the money! I’ve been out of this house for some time, and you and Ezra have been here. Now you tell me there’s five hundred dollars gone. By God, if you weren’t an old man and a guest, you’d eat your words damned quick!”
“I—you—” stammered the doctor, outgeneralled.
“I’ve wasted enough time on you now!” Hal flung at him. “It’s time for you to be going.” He gripped Filhiol by the wrist with a vise-pressure that bruised. “And one thing more, you!” he growled. “You’d just better not go stirring up gramp against me, or accusing me to Ezra. It won’t be healthy for you to go accusing me of what you can’t prove, you prying gray ferret!”
“Ezra knows all about it already!” retorted the doctor, tempted to smash at that insolent, evil face with his cane.
“Knows it, does he?” Hal could not repress a start.
“Yes, he does. He’s already sworn to a falsehood to me, to save your worthless hide!”
“What d’you mean?”
“I mean he’s accused himself of the theft, you scoundrel!”
“Let him, then! If the shoe fits him, let him put it on!”
“Oh, let him, eh? Yes, and let him beggar himself. Let him try to get his pitiful life-savings back into the safe in time to save you! A man who’ll stand by and let a poor old servant, more faithful than a dog, bankrupt himself to cover up a sneaking crime—a man who’ll pack up and run away—”
“I’ve had enough o’ you!” snarled Hal. He pushed the doctor out into the hall. “Ezra’s admitted it, and gramp wouldn’t believe I did it, even if he saw the money in my hand. Get out now, and if you cross my path again, look out!”
The doctor met his threat unflinchingly.
“Young man,” said he, “I sailed harder seas, in the old times, than any seas to-day. I sailed with your grandfather when he was a bucko of the old school, and though we didn’t usually agree and once I nearly shot him, I never knuckled under. Maybe the bullet that just missed cutting off your grandfather’s life is still waiting for its billet. Maybe that’s part of the curse on you!”
His eyes were cold steel as he peered at the menacing, huge figure of Hal.
“Be careful, sir,” he added. “Be very careful how you raise your hand against a man like me!”
“If I ever do raise my hand, there’ll be no more threats of shooting left in you!” Hal flung at him. With a sudden flare of rage he pushed old Filhiol through the door and turned the lock. The doctor stumbled, dropped his cane and fetched up against the balustrade of the stairs. Ashen and trembling he clung there a moment. Then he raised his shaking fist to heaven.
“Oh, God,” he prayed, “God, give me power to stamp this viper’s head before it poisons the captain—before it poisons Laura and old Ezra—the town, the very air, the world! God, give me strength to stamp it in the dust!”
Within the room sounded the tread of Hal, going, coming as he growled to himself, packed up his things for flight.
“Aye, go!” thought the doctor. “Go, and devil take yo
u! Go, and if there’s any curse, carry it with you to the end of the world!”
The doctor realized that nothing better than this departure could happen. The boy would undoubtedly come to his end before long in some drunken brawl. Sooner or later he would meet his match; would get killed, or would do murder and would finish on the gallows or in the chair. That over-mastering physical strength, backed by the arrogance of conscious power, could not fail to ruin him.
“The world will soon settle with you, Hal Briggs,” said he, as he made his way down-stairs. “Soon settle, and for good. It will break the captain’s heart to have you go, but it would break it worse to have you stay. This is best.”
Calmer now, he stopped a moment at the cabin door to assure himself Captain Briggs was sleeping.
“Lord!” he thought. “I hope Hal gets away before the old man wakes up. It will spare us a terrible scene—a scene that might cost the captain his life!”
His eye caught a glint of red. Oddly enough, firelight, reflected from one of the captain’s brass instruments, ticked just a tiny point of crimson on the blade of the old kris.
The doctor shuddered and passed on, failing to notice the open window in the room. He felt oppressed and stifling. Air! he must have air! He got into a coat hanging on the rack, put on his hat and limped out upon the porch.
Up and down walked Dr. Filhiol a few times, trying to shake off heavy bodings of evil. A curious little figure he made, withered, bent, but with the fires of invincible determination burning in his eyes. The time he had passed at Snug Haven had brought back his fighting spirit. Dr. Filhiol seemed quite other from the meek and inoffensive old man who had so short a time ago driven up to the captain’s gate. Even the grip of his hand on his cane was different. Hal Briggs might well look out for him now, if any turn of chance should put him into Filhiol’s power.
The doctor paused at last on the sheltered side of the porch, near the captain’s windows and away from that side of the house where Hal’s room was located. More heavily than ever the rain was sheeting down, and from the shore a long thunder told of sea charges broken against the impenetrable defenses of the rocks.
All at once the doctor saw a figure coming along the road, head down to wind and rain—a figure in a mackintosh, with a little white hat drawn down over thick hair—the figure of a woman.
Astonished that a woman should be abroad in such weather, he peered more closely. The woman came to the side gate, stopped there, and, holding her hat and flying hair with one hand, looked anxiously over the hedge at Snug Haven.
Then Dr. Filhiol recognized her.
“Laura! What the devil now?” said he.
The doctor seemed to read her thought, that she was afraid of being seen by Hal, but that she greatly desired speech of some one else. With raised hand he beckoned her; and she, perceiving him, came quickly through the gate to the porch.
Wild-tossed and disheveled she was with frightened eyes and wistful, pleading face. Filhiol’s heart yearned to her, filled with pity.
“You’re Laura, aren’t you?” asked the doctor, taking her hand and steadying her a little. “Laura Maynard? Yes? I’m Dr. Filhiol, a very old and confidential friend of the captain’s. What can I do to help you?”
“The captain!” she panted, almost spent with exertion and chill. “I’ve got to—see the captain right away!”
“My dear, that’s quite impossible,” said Filhiol, drawing her more into shelter. “He’s asleep, worn out with exertions concerning Hal. You’ve come to see him about Hal. Yes, I thought so. Well, the captain can’t be disturbed now, for any reason whatever. But you can tell me, Laura. Perhaps I may do quite as well.”
She pondered a moment, then asked with a strong effort: “Where is Hal now?”
“Up-stairs. Do you want to see him?”
“No, no, no!” she shuddered. “God forbid! But—oh, doctor, please let me see the captain, if only for a minute!”
“He’s ill, I tell you, Laura.”
“Not seriously?” she asked with sudden anxiety.
“Perhaps not yet, but we can’t take any chances.”
The girl took his hand in a trembling clasp.
“Don’t let anything happen to the captain!” she exclaimed, her rain-wet face very beautiful in its anxiety. “Oh, doctor, he’s the most wonderful old man in the world, the finest, the noblest! Nothing, nothing must happen to him!”
“Nothing shall, if I can help it. If I can stand between him and—and—”
“And Hal?” she queried. “Yes, I understand. What a terrible curse to love a man like that!”
“The captain must soon find it so,” said Filhiol. “Every one who loves that boy has got to suffer grievously. You, too, Laura,” he added. “You must steel your heart to many things. The captain will soon need all your strength and consolation.”
“You know the bad news, too?”
“I know much bad news. But if you’ve got any more, tell me!”
“You know about the fight he had this afternoon and about his buying Gordon’s boat, the Kittiwink?”
“No. Nothing about that. But I know Hal’s packing some things now to make what they call a getaway. And—”
“And you’re not going to stop him?” exclaimed the girl, clutching his arm. “You’re not?”
“Shhh, my dear!” warned Filhiol. “We mustn’t wake the captain in there! Stop Hal? No, no! Nothing better could happen than to have him go before he does murder in this town.”
“He almost did murder this afternoon! He ran into three of McLaughlin’s men down at Hadlock’s Cove, and they twitted him about apologizing to McLaughlin. Then—”
“Say no more,” interrupted the doctor, raising his hand. “I understand.”
“Yes, doctor, but the news has spread, and the rest of the crew have sworn vengeance on Hal. They’ll surely kill him, doctor!”
“God grant they may!” the doctor thought, but what he said was:
“The quicker he goes, then, the better.”
“But isn’t there any way to bring him to reason, doctor? To make him like other men? To save him?”
“I see none,” Filhiol answered. He pondered a moment while the rain-drums rolled their tattoos on the roof of the porch and the sea thundered. “The curse, the real curse on that boy, is his unbridled temper, his gorilla-like strength. His strength has unsettled his judgment and his will. Ordinary men rely on their brains, and have to be decent. Hal, with those battering-ram fists, thinks he can smash down everything, and win, like one of Nietzsche’s supermen. If something could drain him of strength, and weaken and humble him, it might be the salvation of him yet.”
“God grant it might!”
“You still love him, girl?” asked Filhiol, tenderly as a father. “In spite of everything?”
“I love the good in him, and there’s so wonderfully much!”
“I understand, my dear. Just now, the bad is all predominant. There’s nothing to do but let him go, Laura. Because—he’s determined to go, at all costs. Where, I don’t know, or how.”
“I know how!” exclaimed the girl. “He’s bought the Kittiwink and laid in supplies. My father’s in the boat-brokerage business, and he’s got word of it.”
“Bought it?” interrupted the doctor. “How? On credit?”
“No, cash. He paid four hundred and seventy-five dollars for it, in bills.”
“He did? By—h-m!”
“What is it, doctor? Where could Hal get all that money? Do you know?”
“I know only too well, my dear.”
“Tell me!” she exclaimed eagerly, and took him by the hand.
So absorbed were they that neither heard a slight sound from the captain’s window, like the quick intake of a breath. How could they know the old man had wakened, had heard their voices; how could they know he had arisen, and, all trembling and weak, was now standing hidden inside the window, listening to words that tore the heart clean out of him?
CHAPTER XXXVII
>
THE CAPTAIN SEES
Anguished the captain listened. He heard Laura question:
“Where did Hal get that money? Where’s he going, and what does it all mean?” Her trembling voice echoed its woe in the captain’s tortured soul.
“Where Hal’s going I don’t know, Laura,” the doctor answered, “except it’s evident he’s planning to escape from here for good. He may be bound for the South Seas with some crazy, wild notion of a free-and-easy buccaneering life. Hal’s going, and it’s evident he doesn’t intend to come back. The best thing we can do is just let him go. It seems hard, but there’s no other way. As for where he got the money—well—Why not speak plainly to you? It’s the best way now.”
“Tell me, then!”
Within his cabin, old Captain Briggs clutched his hands together in agony. But still he held himself that he might stand there and hear this revelation to the end.
“I will tell you, Laura. The money—there’s only one place where it could have come from.”
“The captain? He gave it to him?”
“It came from the captain, but not as a gift.”
“You—don’t mean—”
“It’s terribly hard to speak that word, Laura, isn’t it?” pitied the old doctor. “Yet the money’s gone from the captain’s safe. Ezra accuses himself, but that’s mere nonsense. Every finger of certainty points to Hal Briggs as a thief. And not only an ordinary thief, but one who’s taken advantage of every bond of confidence and affection, most brutally to betray the man who loves him better than life itself!”
“Oh, you—you can’t mean that—”
“I’m afraid I can’t mean anything else. Hal’s up-stairs now, unless he’s already gone. He’s trying to escape before the captain wakes up.”
“And you’re not going to stop him?”
“Never! You mustn’t, either!”
“But this will break the old man’s heart—the biggest, most loving heart in the world! This will kill him!”
“Even that would be less cruel than to have Hal stay, and have him torture the old captain.”
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