In the early sunlight of the next
day we tossed close off the buoy, and saw the city
sparkle in its groves about the foot of the Punch Bowl
and the masts clustering thick in the small harbour.
A good breeze, which had risen with the sea, carried
us triumphantly through the intricacies of the passage;
and we had soon brought up not far from the landing-stairs.
I remember to have remarked an ugly-horned reptile
of a modern warship in the usual moorings across the
port, but my mind was so profoundly plunged in melancholy
that I paid no heed.
Indeed, I had little time at my disposal.
Messieurs Sharpe and Fowler had left the night before
in the persuasion that I was a liar of the first magnitude;
the genial belief brought them aboard again with the
earliest opportunity, proffering help to one who had
proved how little he required it, and hospitality
to so respectable a character. I had business
to mind, I had some need both of assistance and diversion;
I liked Fowler I don’t know why;
and in short, I let them do with me as they desired.
No creditor intervening, I spent the first half of
the day inquiring into the conditions of the tea and
silk market under the auspices of Sharpe; lunched
with him in a private apartment at the Hawaiian Hotel for
Sharpe was a teetotaler in public; and about four in
the afternoon was delivered into the hands of Fowler.
This gentleman owned a bungalow on the Waikiki beach;
and there, in company with certain young bloods of
Honolulu, I was entertained to a sea-bathe, indiscriminate
cocktails, a dinner, a hula-hula, and (to round
off the night) poker and assorted liquors. To
lose money in the small hours to pale intoxicated
youth has always appeared to me a pleasure overrated.
In my then frame of mind, I confess I found it even
delightful; put up my money (or rather my creditors’)
and put down Fowler’s champagne with equal avidity
and success; and awoke the next morning to a mild
headache and the rather agreeable lees of the last
night’s excitement. The young bloods, many
of whom were still far from sober, had taken the kitchen
into their own hands, vice the Chinaman deposed;
and since each was engaged upon a dish of his own,
and none had the least scruple in demolishing his
neighbour’s handiwork, I became early convinced
that many eggs would be broken and few omelets made.
The discovery of a jug of milk and a crust of bread
enabled me to stay my appetite; and since it was Sunday,
when no business could be done, and the festivities
were to be renewed that night in the abode of Fowler,
it occurred to me to slip silently away and enjoy
some air and solitude.
I turned seaward under the dead crater
known as Diamond Head. My way was for some time
under the shade of certain thickets of green thorny
trees, dotted with houses. Here I enjoyed some
pictures of the native life: wide-eyed, naked
children, mingled with pigs; a youth asleep under a
tree; an old gentleman spelling through glasses his
Hawaiian Bible; the somewhat embarrassing spectacle
of a lady at her bath in a spring; and the glimpse
of gaudy-coloured gowns in the deep shade of the houses.
Thence I found a road along the beach itself, wading
in sand, opposed and buffeted by the whole weight
of the Trade: on one hand, the glittering and
sounding surf, and the bay lively with many sails;
on the other, precipitous, arid gullies and sheer
cliffs, mounting towards the crater and the blue sky.
For all the companionship of skimming vessels, the
place struck me with a sense of solitude. There
came in my head what I had been told the day before
at dinner, of a cavern above in the bowels of the
volcano, a place only to be visited with the light
of torches, a treasure-house of the bones of priests
and warriors, and clamorous with the voice of an unseen
river pouring seaward through the crannies of the
mountain. At the thought, it was revealed to me
suddenly how the bungalows, and the Fowlers, and the
bright, busy town and crowding ships, were all children
of yesterday; and for centuries before, the obscure
life of the natives, with its glories and ambitions,
its joys and crimes and agonies, had rolled unseen,
like the mountain river, in that sea-girt place.
Not Chaldea appeared more ancient, nor the Pyramids
of Egypt more abstruse; and I heard time measured by
“the drums and tramplings” of immemorial
conquests, and saw myself the creature of an hour.
Over the bankruptcy of Pinkerton and Dodd, of Montana
Block, S.F., and the conscientious troubles of the
junior partner, the spirit of eternity was seen to
smile.
To this mood of philosophic sadness
my excesses of the night before no doubt contributed,
for more things than virtue are at times their own
reward, but I was greatly healed at least of my distresses.
And while I was yet enjoying my abstracted humour,
a turn of the beach brought me in view of the signal-station,
with its watch-house and flag-staff, perched on the
immediate margin of a cliff. The house was new
and clean and bald, and stood naked to the Trades.
The wind beat about it in loud squalls; the seaward
windows rattled without mercy; the breach of the surf
below contributed its increment of noise; and the fall
of my foot in the narrow verandah passed unheard by
those within.
There were two on whom I thus entered
unexpectedly: the look-out man, with grizzled
beard, keen seaman’s eyes, and that brand on
his countenance that comes of solitary living; and
a visitor, an oldish, oratorical fellow, in the smart
tropical array of the British man-o’-war’s
man, perched on a table, and smoking a cigar.
I was made pleasantly welcome, and was soon listening
with amusement to the sea-lawyer.
“No, if I hadn’t have
been born an Englishman,” was one of his sentiments,
“damn me! I’d rather ‘a’
been born a Frenchy! I’d like to see another
nation fit to black their boots.” Presently
after, he developed his views on home politics with
similar trenchancy. “I’d rather be
a brute beast than what I’d be a Liberal,”
he said; “carrying banners and that! a pig’s
got more sense. Why, look at our chief engineer they
do say he carried a banner with his own ’ands:
’Hooroar for Gladstone!’ I suppose, or
‘Down with the Aristocracy!’ What ’arm
does the aristocracy do? Show me a country any
good without one! Not the States; why, it’s
the ’ome of corruption! I knew a man he
was a good man, ’ome-born who was
signal-quartermaster in the Wyandotte.
He told me he could never have got there if he hadn’t
have ’run with the boys’ told
it me as I’m telling you. Now, we’re
all British subjects here ”
he was going on.
“I am afraid I am an American,” I said
apologetically.
He seemed the least bit taken aback,
but recovered himself; and, with the ready tact of
his betters, paid me the usual British compliment on
the riposte. “You don’t say so!”
he exclaimed; “well, I give you my word of honour
I’d never have guessed it. Nobody could
tell it on you,” said he, as though it were
some form of liquor.
I thanked him, as I always do, at
this particular stage, with his compatriots; not so
much, perhaps, for the compliment to myself and my
poor country, as for the revelation (which is ever
fresh to me) of Britannic self-sufficiency and taste.
And he was so far softened by my gratitude as to add
a word of praise on the American method of lacing
sails. “You’re ahead of us in lacing
sails,” he said; “you can say that with
a clear conscience.”
“Thank you,” I replied; “I shall
certainly do so.”
At this rate we got along swimmingly;
and when I rose to retrace my steps to the Fowlery,
he at once started to his feet and offered me the
welcome solace of his company for the return.
I believe I discovered much alacrity at the idea,
for the creature (who seemed to be unique, or to represent
a type like that of the dodo) entertained me hugely.
But when he had produced his hat, I found I was in
the way of more than entertainment, for on the ribbon
I could read the legend, “H.M.S. Tempest.”
“I say,” I began, when
our adieus were paid, and we were scrambling down
the path from the look-out, “it was your ship
that picked up the men on board the Flying Scud,
wasn’t it?”
“You may say so,” said
he. “And a blessed good job for the Flying-Scuds.
It’s a God-forsaken spot that Midway Island.”
“I’ve just come from there,”
said I; “it was I who bought the wreck.”
“Beg your pardon, sir,”
cried the sailor: “gen’lem’n
in the white schooner?”
“The same,” said I.
My friend saluted, as though we were
now for the first time formally introduced.
“Of course,” I continued,
“I am rather taken up with the whole story;
and I wish you would tell me what you can of how the
men were saved.”
“It was like this,” said
he. “We had orders to call at Midway after
castaways, and had our distance pretty nigh run down
the day before. We steamed half-speed all night,
looking to make it about noon, for old Tootles beg
your pardon, sir, the captain was precious
scared of the place at night. Well, there’s
nasty filthy currents round that Midway; you
know, as has been there; and one on ’em must
have set us down. Leastways, about six bells,
when we had ought to been miles away, some one sees
a sail, and lo and be’old, there was the spars
of a full-rigged brig! We raised her pretty fast,
and the island after her; and made out she was hard
aground, canted on her bilge, and had her ens’n
flying, union down. It was breaking ’igh
on the reef, and we laid well out, and sent a couple
of boats. I didn’t go in neither; only stood
and looked on: but it seems they was all badly
scared and muddled, and didn’t know which end
was uppermost. One on ’em kep’ snivelling
and wringing of his ’ands; he come on board,
all of a sop like a monthly nurse. That Trent,
he come first, with his ’and in a bloody rag.
I was near ’em as I am to you; and I could make
out he was all to bits ’eard his breath
rattle in his blooming lungs as he come down the ladder.
Yes, they was a scared lot, small blame to ’em,
I say! The next after Trent come him as
was mate.”
“Goddedaal!” I exclaimed.
“And a good name for him too,”
chuckled the man-o’-war’s man, who probably
confounded the word with a familiar oath. “A
good name too; only it weren’t his. He
was a gen’lem’n born, sir, as had gone
maskewerading. One of our officers knowed him
at ’ome, reckonises him, steps up, ’olds
out his ’and right off, and says he, ’’Ullo,
Norrie, old chappie!’ he says. The other
was coming up, as bold as look at it; didn’t
seem put out that’s where blood tells,
sir! Well, no sooner does he ’ear his born
name given him than he turns as white as the Day of
Judgment, stares at Mr. Sebright like he was looking
at a ghost, and then (I give you my word of honour)
turned to, and doubled up in a dead faint. ‘Take
him down to my berth,’ says Mr. Sebright. ’’Tis
poor old Norrie Carthew,’ he says.”
“And what what sort
of a gentleman was this Mr. Carthew?” I gasped.
“The ward-room steward told
me he was come of the best blood in England,”
was my friend’s reply: “Eton and ’Arrow
bred; and might have been a bar’net!”
“No, but to look at?” I corrected him.
“The same as you or me,”
was the uncompromising answer: “not much
to look at. I didn’t know he was a gen’lem’n;
but then, I never see him cleaned up.”
“How was that?” I cried.
“O yes, I remember: he was sick all the
way to ’Frisco, was he not?”
“Sick, or sorry, or something,”
returned my informant. “My belief, he didn’t
hanker after showing up. He kep’ close;
the ward-room steward, what took his meals in, told
me he ate nex’ to nothing; and he was fetched
ashore at ’Frisco on the quiet. Here was
how it was. It seems his brother had took and
died, him as had the estate. This one had gone
in for his beer, by what I could make out; the old
folks at ’ome had turned rusty; no one knew
where he had gone to. Here he was, slaving in
a merchant brig, shipwrecked on Midway, and packing
up his duds for a long voyage in a open boat.
He comes on board our ship, and by God, here he is
a landed proprietor, and may be in Parliament to-morrow!
It’s no less than natural he should keep dark:
so would you and me in the same box.”
“I daresay,” said I. “But you
saw more of the others?”
“To be sure,” says he:
“no ’arm in them from what I see.
There was one ’Ardy there: colonial born
he was, and had been through a power of money.
There was no nonsense about ’Ardy; he had been
up, and he had come down, and took it so. His
’eart was in the right place; and he was well-informed,
and knew French; and Latin, I believe, like a native!
I liked that ’Ardy: he was a good-looking
boy too.”
“Did they say much about the wreck?” I
asked.
“There wasn’t much to
say, I reckon,” replied the man-o’-war’s
man. “It was all in the papers. ’Ardy
used to yarn most about the coins he had gone through;
he had lived with bookmakers, and jockeys, and pugs,
and actors, and all that a precious low
lot,” added this judicious person. “But
it’s about here my ’orse is moored,
and by your leave I’ll be getting ahead.”
“One moment,” said I. “Is Mr.
Sebright on board?”
“No, sir, he’s ashore
to-day,” said the sailor. “I took
up a bag for him to the ’otel.”
With that we parted. Presently
after my friend overtook and passed me on a hired
steed which seemed to scorn its cavalier; and I was
left in the dust of his passage, a prey to whirling
thoughts. For I now stood, or seemed to stand,
on the immediate threshold of these mysteries.
I knew the name of the man Dickson his
name was Carthew; I knew where the money came from
that opposed us at the sale it was part
of Carthew’s inheritance; and in my gallery
of illustrations to the history of the wreck, one
more picture hung, perhaps the most dramatic of the
series. It showed me the deck of a warship in
that distant part of the great ocean, the officers
and seamen looking curiously on: and a man of
birth and education, who had been sailing under an
alias on a trading brig, and was now rescued from
desperate peril, felled like an ox by the bare sound
of his own name. I could not fail to be reminded
of my own experience at the Occidental telephone.
The hero of three styles, Dickson, Goddedaal, or Carthew,
must be the owner of a lively or a loaded conscience,
and the reflection recalled to me the photograph found
on board the Flying Scud; just such a man, I
reasoned, would be capable of just such starts and
crises, and I inclined to think that Goddedaal (of
Carthew) was the mainspring of the mystery.
One thing was plain: as long
as the Tempest was in reach, I must make the
acquaintance of both Sebright and the doctor.
To this end, I excused myself with Mr. Fowler, returned
to Honolulu, and passed the remainder of the day hanging
vainly round the cool verandahs of the hotel.
It was near nine o’clock at night before I was
rewarded.
“That is the gentleman you were
asking for,” said the clerk.
I beheld a man in tweeds, of
an incomparable languor of demeanour, and carrying
a cane with genteel effort. From the name, I had
looked to find a sort of Viking and young ruler of
the battle and the tempest; and I was the more disappointed,
and not a little alarmed, to come face to face with
this impracticable type.
“I believe I have the pleasure
of addressing Lieutenant Sebright,” said I,
stepping forward.
“Aw, yes,” replied the
hero; “but, aw! I dawn’t knaw you,
do I!” (He spoke for all the world like Lord
Foppington in the old play a proof of the
perennial nature of man’s affectations.
But his limping dialect I scorn to continue to reproduce.)
“It was with the intention of
making myself known that I have taken this step,”
said I, entirely unabashed (for impudence begets in
me its like perhaps my only martial attribute).
“We have a common subject of interest, to me
very lively; and I believe I may be in a position to
be of some service to a friend of yours to
give him, at least, some very welcome information.”
The last clause was a sop to my conscience;
I could not pretend, even to myself, either the power
or the will to serve Mr. Carthew; but I felt sure
he would like to hear the Flying Scud was burned.
“I don’t know I I
don’t understand you,” stammered my victim.
“I don’t have any friends in Honolulu,
don’t you know?”
“The friend to whom I refer
is English,” I replied. “It is Mr.
Carthew, whom you picked up at Midway. My firm
has bought the wreck; I am just returned from breaking
her up; and to make my business quite clear
to you I have a communication it is necessary
I should make; and have to trouble you for Mr. Carthew’s
address.”
It will be seen how rapidly I had
dropped all hope of interesting the frigid British
bear. He, on his side, was plainly on thorns at
my insistence; I judged he was suffering torments
of alarm lest I should prove an undesirable acquaintance;
diagnosed him for a shy, dull, vain, unamiable animal,
without adequate defence a sort of dishoused
snail; and concluded, rightly enough, that he would
consent to anything to bring our interview to a conclusion.
A moment later he had fled, leaving me with a sheet
of paper thus inscribed:
Norris Carthew,
Stallbridge-lé-Carthew,
Dorset.
I might have cried victory, the field
of battle and some of the enemy’s baggage remaining
in my occupation. As a matter of fact, my moral
sufferings during the engagement had rivalled those
of Mr. Sebright. I was left incapable of fresh
hostilities; I owned that the navy of old England
was (for me) invincible as of yore; and giving up all
thought of the doctor, inclined to salute her veteran
flag, in the future, from a prudent distance.
Such was my inclination when I retired to rest; and
my first experience the next morning strengthened
it to certainty. For I had the pleasure of encountering
my fair antagonist on his way on board; and he honoured
me with a recognition so disgustingly dry, that my
impatience overflowed, and (recalling the tactics of
Nelson) I neglected to perceive or to return it.
Judge of my astonishment, some half-hour
later, to receive a note of invitation from the Tempest.
“Dear Sir,” it began,
“we are all naturally very much interested in
the wreck of the Flying Scud, and as soon as
I mentioned that I had the pleasure of making your
acquaintance, a very general wish was expressed that
you would come and dine on board. It will give
us all the greatest pleasure to see you to-night,
or in case you should be otherwise engaged, to luncheon
either to-morrow or to-day.” A note of the
hours followed, and the document wound up with the
name of “J. Lascelles Sebright,”
under an undeniable statement that he was sincerely
mine.
“No, Mr. Lascelles Sebright,”
I reflected, “you are not, but I begin to suspect
that (like the lady in the song) you are another’s.
You have mentioned your adventure, my friend; you
have been blown up; you have got your orders; this
note has been dictated; and I am asked on board (in
spite of your melancholy protests) not to meet the
men, and not to talk about the Flying Scud,
but to undergo the scrutiny of some one interested
in Carthew the doctor, for a wager.
And for a second wager, all this springs from your
facility in giving the address.” I lost
no time in answering the billet, electing for the
earliest occasion; and at the appointed hour a somewhat
blackguard-looking boat’s crew from the Norah
Creina conveyed me under the guns of the Tempest.
The ward-room appeared pleased to
see me; Sebright’s brother officers, in contrast
to himself, took a boyish interest in my cruise; and
much was talked of the Flying Scud; of how
she had been lost, of how I had found her, and of
the weather, the anchorage, and the currents about
Midway Island. Carthew was referred to more than
once without embarrassment; the parallel case of a
late Earl of Aberdeen, who died mate on board a Yankee
schooner, was adduced. If they told me little
of the man, it was because they had not much to tell,
and only felt an interest in his recognition and pity
for his prolonged ill-health. I could never think
the subject was avoided; and it was clear that the
officers, far from practising concealment, had nothing
to conceal.
So far, then, all seemed natural,
and yet the doctor troubled me. This was a tall,
rugged, plain man, on the wrong side of fifty, already
grey, and with a restless mouth and bushy eyebrows:
he spoke seldom, but then with gaiety; and his great,
quaking, silent laughter was infectious. I could
make out that he was at once the quiz of the ward-room
and perfectly respected; and I made sure that he observed
me covertly. It is certain I returned the compliment.
If Carthew had feigned sickness and all
seemed to point in that direction here was
the man who knew all or certainly knew
much. His strong, sterling face progressively
and silently persuaded of his full knowledge.
That was not the mouth, these were not the eyes, of
one who would act in ignorance, or could be led at
random. Nor again was it the face of a man squeamish
in the case of malefactors; there was even a touch
of Brutus there, and something of the hanging judge.
In short, he seemed the last character for the part
assigned him in my theories; and wonder and curiosity
contended in my mind.
Luncheon was over, and an adjournment
to the smoking-room proposed, when (upon a sudden
impulse) I burned my ships, and, pleading indisposition,
requested to consult the doctor.
“There is nothing the matter
with my body, Dr. Urquart,” said I, as soon
as we were alone.
He hummed, his mouth worked, he regarded
me steadily with his grey eyes, but resolutely held
his peace.
“I want to talk to you about
the Flying Scud and Mr. Carthew,” I resumed.
“Come, you must have expected this. I am
sure you know all; you are shrewd, and must have a
guess that I know much. How are we to stand to
one another? and how am I to stand to Mr. Carthew?”
“I do not fully understand you,”
he replied, after a pause; and then, after another:
“It is the spirit I refer to, Mr. Dodd.”
“The spirit of my inquiries?” I asked.
He nodded.
“I think we are at cross-purposes,”
said I. “The spirit is precisely what I
came in quest of. I bought the Flying Scud
at a ruinous figure, run up by Mr. Carthew through
an agent; and I am, in consequence, a bankrupt.
But if I have found no fortune in the wreck, I have
found unmistakable evidences of foul play. Conceive
my position: I am ruined through this man, whom
I never saw; I might very well desire revenge or compensation;
and I think you will admit I have the means to extort
either.”
He made no sign in answer to this challenge.
“Can you not understand, then,”
I resumed, “the spirit in which I come to one
who is surely in the secret, and ask him, honestly
and plainly, how do I stand to Mr. Carthew?”
“I must ask you to be more explicit,”
said he.
“You do not help me much,”
I retorted. “But see if you can understand:
my conscience is not very fine-spun; still, I have
one. Now, there are degrees of foul play, to
some of which I have no particular objection.
I am sure with Mr. Carthew, I am not at all the person
to forego an advantage, and I have much curiosity.
But, on the other hand, I have no taste for persecution;
and I ask you to believe that I am not the man to
make bad worse, or heap trouble on the unfortunate.”
“Yes; I think I understand,”
said he. “Suppose I pass you my word that,
whatever may have occurred, there were excuses great
excuses I may say, very great?”
“It would have weight with me, doctor,”
I replied.
“I may go further,” he
pursued. “Suppose I had been there, or you
had been there. After a certain event had taken
place, it’s a grave question what we might have
done it’s even a question what we
could have done ourselves. Or take
me. I will be plain with you, and own that I am
in possession of the facts. You have a shrewd
guess how I have acted in that knowledge. May
I ask you to judge from the character of my action
something of the nature of that knowledge, which I
have no call, nor yet no title, to share with you?”
I cannot convey a sense of the rugged
conviction and judicial emphasis of Dr. Urquart’s
speech. To those who did not hear him, it may
appear as if he fed me on enigmas; to myself,
who heard, I seemed to have received a lesson and
a compliment.
“I thank you,” I said;
“I feel you have said as much as possible, and
more than I had any right to ask. I take that
as a mark of confidence, which I will try to deserve.
I hope, sir, you will let me regard you as a friend.”
He evaded my proffered friendship
with a blunt proposal to rejoin the mess; and yet
a moment later contrived to alleviate the snub.
For, as we entered the smoking-room, he laid his hand
on my shoulder with a kind familiarity
“I have just prescribed for
Mr. Dodd,” says he, “a glass of our Madeira.”
I have never again met Dr. Urquart;
but he wrote himself so clear upon my memory that
I think I see him still. And indeed I had cause
to remember the man for the sake of his communication.
It was hard enough to make a theory fit the circumstances
of the Flying Scud; but one in which the chief
actor should stand the least excused, and might retain
the esteem or at least the pity of a man like Dr. Urquart,
failed me utterly. Here at least was the end
of my discoveries. I learned no more, till I
learned all; and my reader has the evidence complete.
Is he more astute than I was? or, like me, does he
give it up?