Well, I thought about all this, as you may imagine, while I counted the lagging hours of that sunny afternoon and waited, almost with a child's impatience, for Roderick and his sister Mary. When six o'clock struck, and I heard the wheels of the dogcart which was to take me to the station to meet them, I could have cut capers for very gratitude to the old time-piece in the corner of the room. Better still was the moment which set them down upon the platform at the junction: Roderick yawning, as usual; Mary as radiant as a rose in a Devonshire lane.
We shook hands heartily enough, Roderick with his, "Well, here we are," Mary with a complaint upon his laziness. "He's never opened his eyes since we left Paddington," she said; and I could well believe her. Roderick Stewart would go to sleep upon the block, as I once told him. His answer was that he could not imagine a better thing to do.
It was nearly dark when we reached Dolphin's Cove, and the anchor light of the Celsis welcomed us brightly at the river's mouth. Here and there a candle twinkled in a cottage; but full a half of the meagre population appeared to have gathered about the doors of "The Falmouth Arms," and so I judged that my three friends from the high seas were still in the town.
I had just made up my mind to tell Roderick the whole story at dinner when out he came with a piece of news not less remarkable than my own.
"Did you see to-night's papers?" he asked almost in a whisper, while Mary ran on before us into the hall. I told him not be an ass, for what do we know of "to-night's" papers at such a place as Dolphin's Cove?
"Well," he rejoined quite" coolly, "then you've missed something, my boy. Osbart's escaped from Parkhurst, and that's just all about it."
"Fine news entirely," said I, for I would not have him see how grave I thought it. "When did he escape, Roderick?"
"Last night, at six o'clock, after murdering one warder and nearly killing another. They don't know how he got away unless he had a boat waiting. Isn't it a coincidence that it should happen on the eve of our voyage?"
"If it is a coincidence," said I, and no more; for Mary ran out at the moment to tell me that the drawing-room piano was no place for my sea-boots, and that I ought to be ashamed of myself—which I have to be about twenty times a day when she is in command of the ship. My confession of repentance was cut short upon this occasion by the intimation that dinner was already on the table, and we went in immediately, glad, perhaps, to hide what we really felt; as hide it we must from the little mistress of the house.
You will have remembered Doctor Osbart, the mad Osbart of Captain Black's most wonderful ship. He was the first man I met when Black carried me a prisoner to Ice Haven, and the only one of that pirate crew who was caught by the police in London. His trial had been one of the sensations of the year; they charged him, not with piracy upon the high seas, but with a murder committed many years ago in a country town near Shrewsbury, and, a little to the surprise both of the judge and the police, the jury found him insane, and he was sent to a criminal lunatic asylum.
Oddly enough, I had received a letter from Osbart just a couple of months ago, and directly I opened it I knew that Roderick and I must put to sea again and seek to do what others, even our own Admiralty, had failed to do. That task was to regain Captain Black's treasure—the fabulous treasure of which all the world had heard.
And now the Doctor had escaped from prison and was on the high seas once more; while, as I believed, one of Black's very crew caroused at the inn below our windows in the company of rogues who, if they escaped the gallows, certainly did not deserve to do so.
You may well imagine how these thoughts stirred my pulse while Mary babbled of the yacht and the cruise, and Roderick yawned his miserly replies. The scenes they conjured up—scenes of the golden ship and the great silent ocean, and the world of snows; hours of terror and of dread; acts of death and cruelty and despair. All these passed through my mind while I tried to tell Mary that her cabin was "a dream," and that old Dan, the seaman, had been asking after her good health. But I was a thousand miles from Dolphin's Cove in my heart, and I think that the voice of the dead Captain rang loud in my ears. Indeed, it needed an effort to hide the truth from Mary at all.
"Oh," she would cry, "what dreadful men! One says 'I think so,' and the other 'Certainly.' For the last time, Mark, is Billy Eightbells on board or is he not?"
"Why," said I, "where could Billy be when you ore here, Mary? Poor Billy, the little lamb. 'And everywhere that Mary went—just at eight bells—the bos'n he would go.' By the way, though, Billy is third officer now, and he celebrated the occasion by nearly getting strangled this morning." And then I told them of the affair at the Inn, keeping back what I had seen in the timber yard, and leaving Roderick to put what construction upon it he might. He, good fellow, hardly heard me. The Devonshire cream was on the table, and he positively gloated over it.
"Are the men in prison?" Mary asked. I told her that they were more probably in drink.
"Then I hope you won’t let our sailors go to public-houses again, Mark."
"Say the Word and I'll muzzle the lot of them, Mary. They seem to want it by the row that's going on down yonder. Upon my word, the animals must be out of the Ark. Why, it might be the fifth of November!"
"Instead of the twenty-fifth of April," said Roderick. But it woke him up, nevertheless, and the three of us went to the open window to listen to the din. Never had Dolphin's Cove heard such a hullabaloo since the first of the Celts sailed his dugout here. The whole town seemed to be fighting at the doors of "The Falmouth Arms." And loud above the roaring sounds of conflict were the shouts of our own seamen, crying the name of the Celsis one to the other as though for help against a common enemy.
We could see little of the actual affair from our Windows, nor did the lanterns, carried by some of the brawlers, help us overmuch. When Nick Venning came stumbling up the cliff stairs to tell me what it was, his appearance seemed the most natural thing in the world, and I was glad to know that he had a couple of the coastguards at his back. His news was just as serious as it could be; and, as though to make it good, what should happen but that the searchlight of our own yacht was turned presently upon the rioters, and we saw the thing as clear as day—the houses hanging to the face of the cliff, the silver waters of the river, the old wharves and ships, and, right below us, the black surging crowd about the doors of "The Falmouth Arms." Then Nick Venning spoke:
"There's been murder done, gentlemen," he cried, gasping for breath at every word. "The tall man they call Red Roger has sent poor Harry Tebbott to his last account, God help him. I am powerless; I can do nothing, nor nobody else, so if you would come down, Master Mark, and if Mr. Stewart would come——"
I said we would go immediately, and getting a pair of pistols from the case of arms I had been cleaning during the afternoon, I told Mary to wait for us at the window, and bade Roderick follow me. There's no gamer fellow in a fight, I must say, nor one more wideawake when danger is about. The pair of us were out of the house and down the stairs almost before little Mary had begun to protest against our going at all.
Now, we had many friends at Dolphin's Cove, although I had not been the owner of the little house above the harbour for a full year yet. The people I think, had ceased to look upon me as a "foreigner," and I was always sure of a warm welcome from them. So you will understand that my appearance among them upon this occasion was altogether to their satisfaction. On every side I heard confirmation of Nic Venning's story. Harry Tebbott had told the man I called Red Roger that "they didn't want no American fibbilusterers" (he meant filibusters) "on this side of the Atlantic," and the bully had replied by striking him insensible with a quart pot. As it chanced, two of our own crew were at the inn when the