CHAPTER XIX
THE LAST
Mesmer at this date was a youth of twenty-four, but the writings ofVan Helmont and Wirdig and G. Maxwell had already thrown more than aglimmering of light upon the reciprocal action of bodies upon eachother, and had already demonstrated the existence of a universalmagnetic force by which the human will was rendered capable ofinfluencing the minds of others. It was not, however, till seventeenyears later--in the year 1775, to be precise--that Mesmer publishedhis famous letter to the Academies of Europe. And by a strange chanceit was in the same year that I secured a further confirmation of hisdoctrines and at the same time an explanation of the one matterconcerned with this history of which I was still in ignorance. In aword, I learned at last how young Peter Tortue came by his death.
I did not learn it from his father. That implacable man I never sawafter the night when we listened to his footsteps descending thestairs in the darkness. He was gone the next morning from the islands,nor was any trace of him, for all the hue and cry, discovered for along while--not, indeed, for ten years, when my son, who was then alad of eight, while playing one day among the rocks of Peninnis Headon St. Mary's, dropped clean out of my sight, or rather out of Helen'ssight, for I was deep in a book, and did not raise my head until a cryfrom my wife startled me.
We ran to the loose pile of boulders where the boy had vanished, andsearched and called for a few minutes without any answer. But in theend a voice answered us, and from beneath our feet. It was the boy'svoice sure enough, but it sounded hollow, as though it came from thebowels of the earth. By following the sound we discovered at lastbetween the great boulders an interstice, which would just allow a manto slip below ground. This slit went down perpendicularly for perhapsfifteen or twenty feet, but there were sure footholds and one coulddisappear in a second. At the bottom of this hole was a little cave,very close and dark, in which one could sit or crouch.
On the floor of this cave I picked up a knife, and, bringing it to thelight, I recognised the carved blade, which I had seen Tortue oncepolish upon his thigh in the red light of a candle. The cave, uponinquiry, was discovered to be well known amongst the smugglers, thoughit was kept a secret by them, and they called it by the curious nameof Issachum-Pucchar.
This discovery was made in the year of 1768, and seven years later Ichanced to be standing upon the quay at Leghorn when a vessel fromOporto, laden with wine and oil, dropped anchor in the harbour, andher master came ashore. I recognised him at once, although the yearshad changed him. It was Nathaniel Roper. I followed him up into thetown, where he did his business with the shipping agent and thencerepaired to a tavern. I entered the tavern, and sitting down overagainst him at the same table, begged him to oblige me by drinking aglass at my expense, which he declared himself ready to do. "But Icannot tell why you should want to drink with me rather than another,"said he.
"Oh! as to that," said I, "we are old acquaintances."
He answered, with an oath or two, that he could not lay his tongue tothe occasion of our meeting.
"You swear very fluently and well," said I. "But you swore yet morefluently, I have no doubt, that morning you sailed away from St.Helen's Island without the Portuguese King's cross."
His face turned the colour of paper, he half rose from his chair andsat down again.
"I was never on Tresco," he stammered.
"Who spoke of Tresco, my friend?" said I, with a laugh. "I mademention of St. Helen's. Yet you were upon Tresco. Have you forgotten?The shed on Castle Down? The Abbey burial ground?" and then he knewme, though for awhile he protested that he did not.
But I persuaded him in the end that I meant no harm to him.
"You were at Sierra Leone with Cullen, maybe," said I. "Tell me howyoung Peter Tortue came by his death?" and he told me the story whichhe had before told to old Peter in an alehouse at Wapping.
Peter, it appeared, had not been able to hold his tongue at SierraLeone. It became known through his chattering that Glen's company andCullen Mayle were going up the river in search of treasure, and it wasdecided for the common good to silence him lest he should grow moreparticular, and relate what the treasure was and how it came to beburied on the bank of that river. George Glen was for settling thematter with the stab of a knife, but Cullen Mayle would have none ofsuch rough measures.
"I know a better and more delicate way," said he, "a way very amusingtoo. You shall all laugh to-morrow;" and calling Peter Tortue to him,he betook himself with the whole party to the house of an oldbuccaneering fellow, John Leadstone, who kept the best house in thesettlement, and lived a jovial life in safety, being on very goodterms with any pirate who put in. He had, indeed, two or three brassguns before his door, which he was wont to salute the appearance of ablack flag with. To his house then the whole gang repaired, and whilethey were making merry, Cullen Mayle addressed himself with an arduousfriendliness to Peter Tortue, taking his watch from his fob andbidding the Frenchman admire it. For a quarter of an hour he busiedhimself in this way, and then of a sudden in a stern commanding voicehe said:
"Stand up in the centre of the room," which Peter Tortue obedientlydid.
"Now," continued Cullen, with a chuckle to his companions, "I'll showyou a trick that will tickle you. Peter," and he turned toward him."Peter," and he spoke in the softest, friendliest voice, "you talk toomuch. I'll clap a gag on your mouth, you stinking offal! To-morrownight, my friend, at ten o'clock by my watch, when we are lying in ourboat upon the river, you will fall asleep. Do you hear that?"
"Yes," said Peter Tortue, gazing at Mayle.
"At half-past ten, as you sleep, you will feel cramped for room, andyou will dangle a leg over the side of the boat in the river. Do youhear that?"
"Yes!"
"Very well," said Cullen. "That will learn you to hold your tongue.Now come back to your chair."
Peter obeyed him again.
"When you wake up," added Cullen, "you will continue to talk of mywatch which you so much admire. You will not be aware that any timehas passed since you spoke of it before. You can wake up now."
He made some sort of motion with his hands and Peter, whose eyes hadall this time been open, said:
"I'll buy a watch as like that as a pea to a pea. First thing I will,as soon as I handle my share."
Cullen Mayle laughed, but he was the only one of that company thatdid. The rest rather shrank from him as from something devilish, atwhich, however, he only laughed the louder, being as it seemedflattered by their fear.
The next day the six men started up the river in a long-boat whichthey borrowed of Leadstone, and sailed all that day until evening whenthe tide began to fall.
Thereupon Cullen, who held the tiller, steered the boat out of thechannel of the river and over the mudbanks, which at high tide werecovered to the depth of some feet.
Here all was forest: the great tree-trunks, entwined with all mannerof creeping plants, stood up from the smooth oily water, and the roofof branches over head made it already night.
"I have lost my way," said Cullen. "It will not be safe to try toregain the channel until the tide rises. It falls very quickly here,Leadstone tells me, and we should get stuck upon some mudbank. Let uslook for a pool where we may lie until the tide rises in the morning."
Accordingly they took their oars and pulled in and out amongst thetrees, while Cullen Mayle sounded with the boathook for a greaterdepth of water. The tide fell rapidly; bushes of undergrowth scrapedthe boat's side, and then Mayle's boathook went down and touched nobottom.
"This will do," said he.
It was nine o'clock by his watch at this time, and the crew withoutany fire or light made their supper in the boat as best they could.Meanwhile the tide still sank; banks of mud rose out of the blackwater; the forest stirred, and was filled with a horrible rustlingsound, of fish flapping and crabs crawling and scuttering in theslime; and on the pool on which the boat lay every now and then aripple would cross the
water as though a faint wind blew, and a broadblack snout would show, and a queer lugubrious cough echo out amongstthe tree-trunks.
"Crocodiles, Peter," said Cullen gaily, and he clapped Tortue on theshoulder. "It would not be prudent to take a bath in the pool. Handthe lantern over, Glen!" and when he had the lantern in his hand helooked at his watch.
"Five minutes to ten," said he. "Well, it is not so long to wait."
"Four hours," grumbled Tortue, who was thinking of the tide.
"No, only five minutes, my friend," Cullen corrected him, softly; andsure enough in five minutes Peter stretched himself and complainedthat he was sleepy.
Cullen laughed with a gentle enjoyment and whistled a tune between histeeth. But the others waited in a sort of paralysis of horror andamazement. Even these hardened men were struck with a cold fear. Thesuggestions of the place, too, had their effect. Above them was ablack roof of leaves, the close air was foul with the odour of thingsdecaying and things decayed, and everywhere about them was perpetuallyheard the crawling and pattering of the obscene things which lived inthe mud.
Peter Tortue stirred in his sleep, and Cullen held up the face of hiswatch in the light of the lantern so that all in the boat might see.It was half-past ten. Peter lifted his leg over the side and let itfall with a splash in the water. It dangled there for about fiveminutes, and then the man uttered a loud scream and clutched at thethwart, but the next instant he was dragged over the boat's side.
Roper told me this story, and the horror of it lived again upon hisface as he spoke.
"Well," said I, "the father took his revenge. He stabbed Cullen Mayleto the heart as he lay in bed. There is one thing more I would like toknow. Can you remember the paper with the directions of the spot wherethe cross was buried?"
"Yes," said he; "am I likely to forget it?"
"Could you write them out again, word for word and line for line, asthey were written?"
"Yes," said he.
I called for a sheet of paper and a pen and ink, and set them beforeRoper, and he wrote the directions laboriously, and handed the paperback to me. There were only two lines with which I was concerned, andthey ran in this order:
"The S aisle of St. Helen's Church. Three chains east by the compassof the east window."
"Are you sure you have made no mistake?" I asked. "This is a facsimileof the paper which you took from the hollow of the stick. Look again!"
I gave it back to him and he scratched his head over it for a little.Then he wrote the directions again upon a second sheet of paper, andwhen he had written, tore off a corner of the paper.
"Ah!" said I, "that is what I thought." He handed it to me again, andit ran now:--
"The S aisle of S. Helen's Church. Three chainseast by the compass of the east window."
On that corner which had been torn a word had been written. I knew theword. It would be "Cornish." I knew, too, who had torn off the corner.
The cross still lies then three Cornish chains east of that window, orshould do so. We at all events have not disturbed it, for we do notwish to have continually before our eyes a reminder of those days whenthe sailors watched the house at Merchant's Point. Even as it is, Istart up too often from my sleep in the dark night and peer forwardalmost dreading again to see the flutter of white at the foot of thebed, and to hear again the sound of some one choking.
THE END.
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