The Master Craftsman

And now I have to relate the occurrence of a very surprising incident. It was not only surprising in the way it happened, accompanied by circumstances that have a kind of supernatural appearance, but also in the time when it happened. Had it been earlier or had it been later, this history might never have been written. Had it never happened at all, what might have become of Isabel? And for myself, I might as well have jumped off my own quay into the flowing river, for all the hope or joy of living that would have been left to me. The wonder of the thing is that it was not found out long before. A hundred times and more the place had been searched; an accident might have revealed the secret; a jar, a fall, might have thrown open the hiding-place; a casual cabinet-maker might have found it out had he looked in the right direction. But kindly fate left the discovery to me.

The room allotted to me for a bedroom was that in which old John Burnikel’s bare and naked four-poster was standing. When I was first shown the room, it had no other furniture than the four-poster and the old man’s sea-chest. They had now clothed the forlorn bedstead, and put in certain chairs and things, so as to make a habitable room of it. The window faced south, and as it was on the second-floor, it looked over the boat-shed upon the river. Here I slept every night in the bed where the old Master Mariner died, quite untroubled by any thoughts about him or the long-lost diamonds, and unvisited by the ghost of their former owner.

It was in the beginning of August, when the nights are still short. Perhaps it was a hot night; perhaps there was more noise of passing steamers from the river than usual—the Silent Highway is generally much noisier than Cheapside by night, as well as by day. Whatever the cause, I woke up, starting suddenly into wakefulness. It was early dawn, but the light was rapidly increasing. My blind was up, my curtains drawn, my window wide open. I lay lazily watching the sky in the south grow lighter—gray at first, and then suffused with some of the eastern glow—a tender, subdued glow like the colour on Isabel’s cheek, which so quickly comes and goes—the tell-tale glow. Perhaps, had I not begun to think about Isabel, I might have gone to sleep again, in which case this thing would not have happened.

The gray hues passed away, the rosy hues passed away; there remained the clear deep blue of early morning before the smoke begins, when the sky may be like the sky of Africa for clearness and for depth, and when the river, with its bridges and its boats, all asleep in silence, save for the wish and wash of the ebb and flow, is an enchanted stream.

Presently I closed my eyes again. Contrary to reasonable expectation, I did not go to sleep again. It was that kind of hopeless wakefulness which makes sleep past praying for. I insist upon this point on account of what followed, which was not a dream, for I was awake; but a kind of vision, and only remarkable because it coincided with the discovery which followed.

Do not suppose that I attribute this vision to any supernatural interference. Nothing of the kind. Neither the ancient mariner, the master mariner, nor the unfortunate nabob of whose existence I first learned in the vision, ever appeared to me or afflicted me with terrors. I have never been in the least afraid of ghosts. Had old John Burnikel come to my bedside, I would have had the secret of the diamonds out of him before I let him go, as sure as my name is George Burnikel. But he never came; he made no sign. I think he must have forgotten in the other world all about his diamonds; his ghost never once appeared to me. Had it done so, I would have had the great secret, I say, out of him in no time. ‘Ghost,’ I should have said, ‘where are those diamonds? Who stole them? What is the truth about them? If they were stolen, and have long since been dispersed, let me know. If they still remain to be discovered, somewhere or other, tell me where they are. I adjure thee, I command thee, by all the charms and spells that you ghosts are fools enough to dread, tell me where those diamonds are.’

That is what I should have said. But the only man I know who ever claimed to have raised a ghost—and that was also the ghost of a sailor—told me that he was only too glad to let him go back again below, below, below, and that, though as brave as most, he did not dare to ask any questions. I don’t believe a word of it. However, ghosts are scarce; perhaps I should have behaved in the same manner. And this, I take it, is the case with most; otherwise we should know more about certain things whose uncertainty is sometimes disagreeable. All you have to do is to raise your ghost and not be afraid of him. There was no ghost, and yet the air seemed this morning full of the Burnikel legend. There was the sound of a ship slowly making her way up the river—a Hamburg or Norwegian steamer, perhaps. One is never allowed perfect calm at Wapping. I lay on my back in the old wooden four-poster, which they had fitted with a spring mattress instead of a feather-bed, and I recalled the wonderful story: how the old man one night displayed his bag of precious stones, worth anything you please; how he told the cousins it would be theirs; how, a day or two afterwards, he was found dying, and told them collectively that they knew where the bag was kept; how they did not know, but searched and could not find it, and accused each other, and fought and separated.

I lay on my back recalling this odd story, which was chiefly interesting because it was a story without an end.

Another interest it might have, if one were to consider how John Burnikel got those diamonds, because the old man’s romance of the Great Mogul and the invitation to fill his pockets in the Royal Treasure Vaults was clearly too ridiculous; it was so very plainly invented with intent to deceive.

The first thing that happened after this awaking was a vision. It was a very odd vision. To begin with, I was not asleep. To this day I cannot understand how this vision, of all others, came to me. One never dreams original plots of novels; quite new stories never come to anyone; and this story, except for one little half-forgotten circumstance, was quite new. Some novelists have pretended that their plots habitually come to them in dreams, but I do not believe it. Dreams and visions are erratic, incoherent, and unconnected things for the most part. That makes my vision all the more remarkable.

I suppose I must have dropped into some kind of bodily torpor. I am sure I was not asleep, because all through the business I knew that I was lying on the bed, although the action of the piece, so to speak, was elsewhere. However that may be, it is really useless to explain or account for a vision. The one that came to me was, so to speak, a magnified and embroidered piece of work, springing from something that Isabel had once told me. Why, I had quite forgotten it. She was talking about her people, who were no more illustrious in station than my own; and she informed me that once there was a strange man among them who had run away to sea, and come home again in rags twenty years later, raving about a fortune he had lost in India. Nothing more than that. A very slight material of which to construct a vision. Yet it came, and as long as I live I shall believe that the vision was somehow a revelation of the truth sent to me just before the great discovery.

It began by my stepping out of the house—but I knew all along that I was in the bed—and walking down the narrow lane leading out of the High Street to Wapping Old Stairs. There I found, sitting on the stairs, an elderly gentleman dressed in clothes extremely shabby. He wore a coat of brown cloth, he had worsted stockings, hat frayed and worn at the edge—quite a poor man he seemed to be. From his dress it was evident that he belonged to the eighteenth century, which I like to consider a picturesque period.

He sat upon the top step of Wapping Old Stairs, and he looked across the river; and as he gazed the tears ran down his face.

It is not often that one gets the chance of talking to a man of the eighteenth century, but it seemed not unnatural. I sat down beside him as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

‘What, sir,’ I asked timidly, ‘is the cause of this grief?’

He sighed heavily. ‘My diamonds!’ he said, ‘my diamonds!’

‘What diamonds? I am a stranger to your time, worthy sir, and I know nothing of your diamonds.’

‘What troubles me,’ he said, ‘is that I think I must have lost my soul in getting them together, in which case I have thrown away my soul for nothing.’

‘Dear me, sir, this is serious indeed.’

‘Yes, young man, they were amassed by scraping and grinding, and squeezing and skinning. Never were people ground down more miserably; and it was I who did it in my master’s service—in the service of the devil, I think. And now I have lost the diamonds as well. What have I got in exchange for my soul?’

I ought to have thought of John Burnikel at this point, but I did not.

‘Tell me more about the diamonds,’ I said.

‘Once I was a Nabob,’ he began, fetching a sigh as deep as an Artesian well.

‘Really? A Nabob? I thought a Nabob had a carriage and four, and troops of servants.’

‘Once I was a Nabob.’ Then he stopped and looked around him suspiciously. The watermen lay asleep in their boats. It was a Sunday afternoon in summer. The ships were moored in long lines down the river from London Bridge, which we could not see for the bend, down to the Lower Pool. ‘Is there no one here but yourself?’ he whispered.

‘No one; and I belong to the next century.’

‘So you do. And you can’t lock me up in a madhouse, can you? Oh, it’s dreadful to be in a madhouse when you are not mad! Horrible! They knock you about! they starve you! they abuse you! they chain you up—when you are not mad at all. Young man, never, if you can possibly help it, lock up anyone in a madhouse.’

I promised him that I would not.

‘They put me in on account of these lost diamonds. They said I was mad.’

‘What diamonds, then?’

‘Sir, it relieves my grief to tell the cause. I was one of those unlucky youths who cannot remain at home and do what the others do. I had to run away when I was fourteen to prevent being apprenticed to some vile trade—saddlery, I believe. So I ran away and went to sea; and when we got to Calcutta, because the Captain was a brute, and the mate was a brute, and the bo’s’n was a brute, I ran away from the ship, and went up country, and entered the service of a native Prince. And him I served for twenty years and more—served well—squeezed and ground and skinned his people for him. And I got rich in his service, for he gave me great presents. I told you—I was once a Nabob. Great presents he gave me, though he was a devil.’

‘Very good, so far.’

‘When he let me go I carried down to Calcutta all my treasure in jewels and gold pieces. I bought jewels, of which I understood the value very well, with my money, and put them in a bag with what I had already—a long, narrow canvas bag—and put the bag in a leathern belt, where it could not be seen. And then I took passage in a homeward bound, with all my fortune upon my person, worn night and day, in that narrow leathern belt. Lots of people brought treasure home from India that way. It was thought a safe way.’

‘Well?’

He sighed heavily. ‘On the voyage,’ he resumed, ‘I believe soon after sailing, I was taken ill: it was brain-fever, sunstroke, or something. When I came to myself again I was on shore—brought ashore and taken to Bedlam because I was still disordered in my wits with my fever, or my sunstroke.’

‘Oh! You were taken to Bedlam.’

‘I was taken to Bedlam and kept there—I don’t know how long. When they let me go, and I remembered things, the belt was gone—the belt with the diamonds was gone, I say!’

‘Who took it?’

‘I don’t know. Some sailor on the ship, perhaps; the keepers at Bedlam, perhaps. So I went home to my own people, who lived at Canterbury, and were saddlers. And when I went home in rags, they drove me out, and when I raved about my diamonds, they locked me up again in another madhouse.’

All this time I never thought of old John Burnikel at all.

‘That was very unlucky. What was the name of the ship?’ I asked him.

‘I cannot remember; I have never been able to remember.’

‘Or of the captain?’

‘I cannot remember.’

‘What is your own name? Can you remember that?’

‘Samuel Dering.’

‘Oh! Are you by any accident related to Captain Dering, and Isabel, his daughter, both living in the year 1895?’

‘They will be my great-grand-nephew and great-great-grand-niece.’

‘Then they ought to have the diamonds, if they were found?’

‘Certainly they ought. I give them to Isabel. Please tell her so.’

‘And the name of the captain—was it John Burnikel?’

‘It was!’ He sprang to his feet. ‘Captain Burnikel it was! Where is he? where is he?’

‘Dead, my friend—dead for nearly ninety years—as dead as you yourself.’

He looked at me reproachfully, and the vision vanished. I was lying in the old man’s bed and gazing at the sky. It was an odd trick of the brain, more especially as I had never heard any hint or suggestion of the kind. But at this moment I believe that I dreamed the truth, and that old John Burnikel simply cut the belt from the waist of a passenger gone mad for the time with sunstroke, or some other cause. The passenger recovered after landing, but could not remember the name of the ship or the captain, and he was the great-grandfather of Isabel.

Nothing in the story at all, except for the accident which followed.

My eyes fell upon the sea-chest. It was a large iron-bound trunk—the sea-chest of an officer, not a common sailor, who is only allowed, I believe, a sea-bag.

The more I looked at that chest, the more I thought about the unfortunate Nabob turning all his fortune into precious stones, and tying them up in a canvas bag worn as a belt. The vision, I repeat, was so clear, the words were so plain, that I had not the least doubt about the truth of the thing. John Burnikel had grown rich suddenly by robbing a sick man of his fortune. No one suspected him; no one can trace gems unless they are very large indeed; no one thought that he possessed any precious stones till the last year of a very long life, and then he accounted for their possession by a cock-and-bull story. Had the injured man, this poor ruined Nabob, found him out, he could bring no charge against him, for he had no kind of proof. And then an irresistible desire seized me to search the chest once more on my own account. It had been ransacked, I knew, time after time by Robert and his predecessors. Never mind; I must look for myself.

So I sprang out of bed, and dragging the box out of the corner into the middle of the room, I threw open the lid and began to search, taking out the contents slowly one by one.

The chest had been left just as it was since the old man’s death. Nothing had been taken away, only it had been searched a hundred times; every separate member of the family had searched it over and over again for three generations in hopes of finding that lost fortune. But in vain. And now it was my turn.

The chest certainly contained a collection which showed travel. It was divided into two unequal compartments, one about two feet six long, and the other about eighteen inches. Both compartments were provided with a tray about two and a half inches deep. The things in the chest were not arranged in order, but just lay about, one on the other, piled up, just as they were thrown in by the last who examined the contents. The things were not such as we should now call rare; they consisted of curios brought from voyages in the Far East and sea-going things of the time. Thus, an ancient rusty flint and steel pistol belonged to the sailor. An Oriental dagger must have been picked up in some native shop of Calicut or Bombay. The mariner’s compass, the roll of charts, the telescope, the sextant, the large silver watch, belonged to the sailor; so, I suppose, did a mummified flying-fish, which still preserved something of its ancient salt-sea smell; a carved sandal-wood box; one or two Oriental pipes; a large figure of Buddha, or somebody else, looking supremely wise and philosophic—or perhaps theosophic; certain silk handkerchiefs, mostly eaten by moths; slippers in gilt leather; a book of Hindoo pictures, ugly and fleshly; one or two things in mother-of-pearl; half a dozen gold rings; twenty or thirty silver bangles tied together. All these things spoke of the Eastern traveller, and, a hundred years ago, would be thought curious.

The first thing that made me jump was a leathern belt lying at the bottom of the box. A leathern belt! Why, it confirmed, I thought, that strange story concerning the fever-stricken passenger. He had his leathern belt. Well, but anybody may have a leathern belt. And this was quite a common thing—a broad strap with a buckle, black with wear or with age. I took it out and examined it. Now, which was a very remarkable coincidence, the leather was double; it could be pulled open along the upper line, and there was room within for just such a long slim bag as was described by my imaginary Nabob. I passed my fingers along the whole length of this curious double belt—the secret-holding belt. No, there were no jewels left.

Nothing more was in the box of the least importance. All the things lay on the floor beside the box; the thing itself, with its lid wide open, stood below the window, the full light falling into its two compartments. As you know, I am a fairly good hand at a lathe, and I am by trade a practical boat-builder—a craftsman; my eye is therefore trained. Now, as I looked into the empty chest, thinking about that belt, I perceived that, at the back of the chest in the larger compartment, the longer side was not quite at right angles with the bottom of the chest. The difference was very slight—an inclination of a very few degrees from the right angle; still, it was there, and to a practised eye quite visible. But in the smaller compartment the right angle left nothing to be desired; it was a true right angle. Was this accidental? I lifted the chest, and changed its position. Yes; there could be no doubt about the inclination of the lower two inches all along the back of the larger compartment. I turned the box over; the back was perfectly rectangular. But here, again, I observed a curious point. The chest was solidly built: the wood was thick all over; but the wood of the back was two inches thick. Why had they taken such extraordinary precautions to strengthen the chest? And then a strange sense of excitement fell upon me, because I was now quite certain that all these signs meant something which I was going to discover.

The chest was lined with paper of a pattern which contained, at intervals of four or five inches, a black thick line; one of these lines occurred just above the beginning of the angle. The effect of the line was, of course, to darken the part just above and just below. Now, when I looked narrowly into the place, I fancied that I saw below the line another, which looked as if it was a solution of the continuity. Two inches below, at the very bottom of the chest, there was a mark of some kind, but not that of a solution of the continuity.

A practical man in the boat-building trade never goes about, even in his bedroom, without a good strong jack-knife—one that will serve many purposes, if necessary. I found mine, and I tested this apparent juncture. Yes; the blade penetrated easily. I passed it along the box, backwards and forwards; the wood creaked, being old and dry. What was the meaning of this slit? I turned the knife round. The wood slowly gave way, and this part of the box grindingly and grudgingly opened. It turned on creaking hinges, being kept in place by two rusty springs. I dragged it quite open with my fingers. It was a long, narrow, slightly-curved shutter, fitting tightly to the side of the box at a small angle almost imperceptible. Behind, the thick wood of the box had been hollowed out; and thus a secret cupboard was found, the existence of which would never be suspected.

In that narrow recess lay the thing for which everybody had been searching for nearly a hundred years—the cause of the cousins’ quarrel and separation: the long narrow bag of brown canvas stuff, like one of the old-fashioned purses, only open at the end instead of the middle.

With a beating heart I took it out. The narrow brown canvas bag, just as the ruined Nabob had told me! Did he appear just then in order to tell me? I laid it on the bed. It was tied very tightly with string at one end. There were things in it. What things?

I threw the bag on the bed and leaned out of the window. The morning air was fresh; the sun was bright; the river—I could see it over the boat-shed—danced in the sunlight and the breeze. I sat there for some time—I know not how long—my brain running away with me, filled with confused murmurs as of people all talking together: the original Robert and George clamouring for a division; old John himself telling us how the great Eastern King bade him fill his pockets and fear not; the poor old ragged Nabob sitting on Wapping Old Stairs in order to bewail his loss; and Isabel whispering that I should be better without these diamonds. A curious jumble of voices and of thoughts.

Perhaps it was not, after all, the bag of diamonds.

I left the window. I dared to put the thing to the proof; I cut the string with my knife, and I poured out the contents upon the sheet of the open bed.

Heavens! what a shower was that which descended! Danaë herself never saw so fine a sight. They fell in a small cascade of splendid light and colour—diamond, pearl, emerald, ruby, sapphire, jasper, topaz, beryl, opal, hyacinth, turquoise, agate, every conceivable gem poured out of the long sack—two feet six long and three inches broad—and there they lay before me in a heap, glittering in the morning light. There were thousands of stones, large and small; not rough stones, but all cut and polished.

I had found the old man’s precious hoard. What they were worth I could not imagine, nor have I ever learned. Only to amass such an immense sum in the service of an Eastern Prince in twenty years must, I should imagine, as the Nabob hinted, be extremely dangerous to the welfare of the soul.

I ran my fingers through the pile. I played with the pretty things. I threw them up to watch the light playing on them as they fell. I rolled them over and over. Then began various temptations. I am not ashamed to confess to very elementary suggestions that I should ‘sneak’ those jewels. Said the voice of the Tempter: ‘Nobody knows what you have found. Take the stones and go back to Piccadilly. There will be heaps and heaps for you to live upon in that bag as long as you are likely to live, and afterwards. Piccadilly is much more pleasant than Wapping. Boat-building is a mean, mechanical craft. Remember that you belong to that end of town. This is a Providential occasion; it is sent to you on purpose to restore you to your old position.’

To this Tempter—I don’t know why he took the trouble to come at all—one could easily find a reply. ‘Sir,’ I said, with dignity, ‘you do not know to whom you are speaking. Go away, sir. Go to the Devil, sir!’

The second Tempter said, ‘Why, just as this treasure would have belonged to the original Robert and George had they found it, so it belongs to the new Robert and George, now that they have found it. Call him in quickly, and share it with him. Halves. That will give you both plenty to live upon.’

To which I made answer on reflection: ‘My grandfather had brothers and sisters. They went down in the world while he went up. I have cousins somewhere who have as much right to the inheritance as I myself. And Robert has brothers and sisters—no doubt, cousins as well. The inheritance belongs to them as well as to Robert. If every one of us has his share, there will not be much left.’

Then said the Tempter: ‘Why tell the far-off unknown cousins anything about it? Probably they are much better without their share; much best for most men to keep poor: they are out of temptation. Besides, there is not too much to be divided between you and Robert. You will be able to go back to the West End; it’s a much more pleasant life. Here you will vegetate and grow stupid; your manners will fall from you; your ideas will grow sordid, like your business. Better go West again, and stay there. You will never again get such a chance. Boat-building is a mean, mechanical craft.’

‘You, too,’ I said, with a struggle, ‘may go to your own place, wherever that may be.’

I put back the stones in their bag. I closed the shutter; I filled the chest with its contents. I closed the lid, and pushed the chest back into the corner. Then I lay down on the bed and fell fast asleep.

When I awoke it was past six, and the life on the river had long since begun. Had I dreamed? At first I thought so. The dream of the unfortunate Nabob and his narrative was just as vivid as the dream of finding the diamonds. Fired with this thought, I sprang out of bed and tore open the box; yes, along the bottom ran that thin line which I had opened with my knife. I doubted no longer.

I had found the diamonds.

I dressed quickly and hurried down to the river, where I went out for a pull in one of our own boats—‘Burnikel and Burnikel.’ The exercise and the fresh air set my brain right. I was able to see the thing in its true light: namely, the find did not affect me at all. For nearly ninety years that sea-chest had been in the possession of the tenant of the house. Robert received it as part of his inheritance; to him, as to the eldest, the family house and the family business; to the others, a small sum of money each and the wide, wide world. The chest was Robert’s, with all its contents; just as the old man’s bed was Robert’s, and all the furniture of the house was his.

After breakfast the Captain retired to his own room. Isabel and I were left alone. She proceeded, according to her wont, to wash up the teacups; it is an ancient, homely custom among old-fashioned housewives, and belongs to a time when china was dear and very precious.

‘You look serious, George,’ she said. ‘Has anything important happened?’

‘Something very important.’

‘Is it anything that will take you away from this place?’

Then I looked around and considered this maiden, how sweet and good she was, and how much simpler and sweeter than the girls of society; and how lovely she was, especially when the colour, like the dainty delicate bloom of the peach, rose to her cheek. And how she loved me—that I knew; and how I was bent upon taking her away from her cold, unloving fiancé; and how she would never find any place in society where she would be happy; and how I could not live without her.

Of course, the chest belonged absolutely to Robert—the chest and all that it contained.

‘No, Isabel, nothing will ever happen that will take me from your presence unless you command me to go.’

Despite my promise, some such words would fly out from time to time. My excuse is that I was thinking continually how to effect Isabel’s release.

She made no reply, but went on washing up the cups and saucers.

‘Isabel,’ I said, remembering the tearful Nabob, ‘do you remember telling me about a certain member of your family who came home from India and always raved about a lost fortune? Where did your people come from?’

‘They lived at Canterbury once.’ That was where the Nabob went. ‘I do not know how long they lived there.’

‘And about that man coming from India? Do you know anything about the fortune that he lost?’

‘There was a man once—I have heard my great-grandfather, who lived to a very old age, speak of his uncle, who was a very strange man. He had been abroad, and he was wandering in his wits, and used to sit down and cry over a lost fortune, which he said was in a belt. That is all I know about him. My great-grandfather always said that he believed in the loss of the fortune. But why do you ask?’

‘Only because I dreamed about him last night. Odd, wasn’t it? Dreamed that he sat on the steps, and wept over his lost fortune.’

‘You dreamed about him? About my great-great-uncle, of whom you have heard that strange thing!’

‘Yes. It’s a strange world. I dreamed about him. I will tell you some day—soon—what I dreamed. It’s a very strange world indeed, Isabel. And the most wonderful things get found out, years and years and years after they have been done and forgotten.’

Then, for reasons of my own, I resolved to tell no one about the diamonds for the present. One or two things had to be done before Robert should learn of his recovered inheritance.