Rarely had Captain Ducie felt in a pleasanter frame of mind than when he went down to breakfast in the course of the forenoon following the evening on which he had shown Mr. Van Loal and his daughter the Great Mogul Diamond. Several circumstances had combined to render him more than ordinarily cheerful. He had fully made up his mind to propose to Mirpah Van Loal that very day, and he felt little fear that his suit would be rejected. Once married, he would cut his old associations for ever, would probably leave England for several years, and in some remote spot would, with his lovely wife, lead a life such as one sometimes reads of in idylls and romances but rarely sees reduced to practice in this work-a-day world. Mr. Van Loal had appraised the Diamond at a very tolerable sum, and through his influence he would doubtless be able to dispose of it quietly, and in a way that would give rise to no suspicion as to the mode by which it had come into his possession. The proceeds of the sale, judiciously invested, would be productive of an annual income on which it would be possible to live in comfort wherever he might choose to pitch his tent. Lastly, all apprehension as to any results which might possibly have accrued to him from the sudden death of M. Platzoff, and the subsequent events at Bon Repos, had utterly died away. He had got by this time to feel as if the Diamond were as much his own as though it had been given to him or handed down to him as a family heirloom. If any uncomfortable thought connected with the death of Platzoff and his appropriation of the Diamond ever crossed his mind, it was dismissed with ignominy, like a poor relation, almost as soon as it made itself known. Captain Ducie was not a man to let his conscience trouble him whenever it wished to question him respecting any transaction the results of which had proved prosperous to himself. In such cases he bade it begone, turning it out by main force, and shutting the door in its face. But whenever it stole in and began to reproach him for his conduct in any little affair that in its results had proved disastrous either socially or pecuniarily, then did Edmund Ducie bow his head in all humility before the veiled monitress, and cry mea culpa, and bewail his naughtiness with many inward groans, and promise to amend his ways in time to come. But it may be doubted whether in the latter case his regret did not arise less from having done that which was wrong, than because the wrong had proved unsuccessful in compassing the ends for which it was done.
Be that as it may, Captain Ducie's conscience did not seem to trouble him much as he came downstairs this pleasant autumn morning, humming an air from the Trovatore, and giving the last finishing touches to his filbert-shaped nails. He rang the bell for breakfast, and turned over, half contemptuously, the selection of newspapers on the side table.
"Has Mr. Van Loal come down to breakfast yet, do you know?" he asked when the waiter re-entered the room.
"I will ascertain, sir, and let you know."
Two minutes later the waiter came back. "Mr. Van Loal, sir, and Miss Van Loal, left this morning by the Southampton boat."
"What!" shouted Ducie, jumping to his feet as though he had been shot.
The waiter repeated his statement.
"Either you are crazy or you have been misinformed," said Ducie, contemptuously, as he quietly resumed his seat. "Go again, and ascertain the truth this time."
Presently the waiter returned. "What I told you before, sir, is quite true. Mr. Van Loal and his daughter left this morning by the early boat."
A horrible sickening dread took possession of Ducie. He staggered to his feet, his face like that of a corpse. Was it--was it possible that by some devil's trick the Diamond had been conjured from him? His hand went instinctively to the spot where he knew it ought to be. No--it was not gone. He could feel it there, just below his heart, in the little sealskin bag that hung from his neck by a steel chain. He had replaced it there after taking it from the fingers of Van Loal the preceding night, and he had not looked at it since.
Greatly relieved, he turned to the waiter with a face that was still strangely white and contorted. "What you have just told me is almost incredible," he said, "in fact, I cannot believe it without further proof. Go and bring to me some one who was an eye-witness of the departure of Mr. and Miss Van Loal."
The waiter went. Ducie was still unnerved, and he poured himself out a cup of coffee with a hand that trembled in spite of all his efforts to keep it still. But his appetite for breakfast was utterly gone.
Then the waiter came back and ushered into the room, first, the young lady who kept the accounts of the establishment; secondly, the boots. The young lady advanced with charming self-possession, made her little curtsy, and broke the ice at once.
"I am informed, sir, that you wish to have some particulars respecting the departure of Mr. and Miss Van Loal," she said. "They dined with you last evening in your own room, if I am not mistaken. Yes. Well, sir, about eleven o'clock, just as I was closing my books for the night, I was surprised by a visit from Mr. Van Loal. 'Oblige me by making out my little account,' said he; 'and include in it to-morrow's breakfast. I am recalled to England by important letters, and must go by the first boat. You will further oblige me by making no mention of my departure till after I am gone. I have several friends to whom I ought to say good-by, but I do not feel equal to the occasion, and wish to slip quietly away without saying a word.' Mr. Van Loal waited while I made out the account. Then he paid me and bade me good-night. When I got up this morning, I found that he and his daughter had gone by the early boat. James, here, took their luggage down to the pier and saw them start."
"Did you with your own eyes see Mr. and Miss Van Loal start by the Southampton boat this morning?"
"I did, sir. I was instructed to look after their luggage this morning. I took it down to the boat and saw the old gentleman and the young lady safe aboard. They went below deck at once, and two minutes later the steamer was off."
"A very clear and conclusive narrative," said Ducie. "You are the man, I believe, who looks after the letters and attends to the post bag?"
"I am, sir."
"Were there any letters by the afternoon post yesterday for Mr. Van Loal?"
"No, sir, not one. I can speak positively to that."
Left alone, Captain Ducie sat down in a perfect maze of perplexity. That Van Loal and his daughter were gone he could no longer doubt. But why had they gone without a hint or word of farewell? They must have known at the time they were dining with him the previous evening that they were about to sail on the following morning, and yet they allowed him to plan and arrange for the day's excursion as though any thought of change were the last thing in their minds. And Mirpah, too--what of her? What of the woman whom it was his intention to have proposed to that very day? Had she merely been playing with him all along in order that she might jilt him at last? He could not understand the thing at all. He was mazed, utterly dumbfounded, like a man walking in a dream. The more he thought of the affair, the less comprehensible it seemed to him. His amour propre was terribly wounded. More intolerable than all else was the sense there was upon him of having been outwitted, of having in some mysterious way been made the victim of a plot with the beginning and ending of which he was utterly unacquainted. He had been hoodwinked--bamboozled--he felt sure of it: but how and for what purpose he was quite at a loss to fathom. His Diamond was perfectly safe; he had never gambled with Van Loal; whatever his looks might have conveyed, he had never spoken a word of love to Mirpah, so that it was impossible she could have taken offence with him on that score. What, then, was the meaning of it all? He rang the bell to inquire whether Mr. Van Loal had left no note, or message of any kind for him. None whatever, was the reply.
"What a preposterous idiot I must have been," murmured Ducie, "to fancy that this woman whom I proposed to make my wife, cared for me the least bit in the world! She is like the rest of her sex--neither better nor worse. From highest to lowest they are false and fickle--every one."
He spent a miserable day, wandering aimlessly about, he neither knew nor cared whither; nursing his wounds, and vainly striving to understand for what reason he had been struck so mercilessly and in the dark. A thousand times that day he cursed the name of Mirpah Van Loal. Once he paused in his pacing of the lonely sands, and not satisfied with the evidence of his fingers that the Diamond was safe in its sealskin pocket, he took it out of its hiding-place and gazed on it, and pressed it to his lips, even as M. Paul Platzoff had done in his time, and as, in all probability, hundreds had done before him.
"Fool! after all my experience of life and the world, to believe in the chimera of woman's love!" he said bitterly to himself. "Man's only real friend in this world is money, or that which can command money. The rest is only a shadow on the wall, gone ere it can be clutched."
He had been wandering about all day without food, and when night set in he felt nervous and dispirited.
He made a pretence of eating his dinner as usual, but he sickened at his food and sought consolation in a double allowance of wine. Later on he strolled out with a cigar, and made his way to a certain billiard-room where he was not unknown. He was too nervous to touch a cue himself, but he found his excitement in betting on other men's play. After having lost five sovereigns he went back to his hotel. This was the night of Cleon's arrival at Jersey.
His mood next day was one of sullen bitterness. It was a mood that, under other circumstances, might have incited him to do something desperate, were it only to find a safety-valve for his pent-up feelings. In such a mood, had he been on active service, and had the need arisen, he would have gloried in offering himself as the leader of some forlorn hope. In such a mood, had he been a burglar, it would have fared ill with any one who stood up in defence of that which he had made up his mind to take as his own. Happily, or unhappily, in such crises of everyday life we have no choice save to eat our own hearts, and drink our own tears, and wear the mask of comedy to the world, while hiding that other mask of tragedy under our robe, which we venture to don only when we are in secret and alone.
Captain Ducie, behind the mask of comedy which he presented to the world, hid a heart that in a few short hours had become surcharged with gall, and that would never again, however long his life might be, be entirely free from bitterness. He felt like one of those savage caged creatures who, when they have nothing else to war against, will sometimes turn and rend themselves. He felt that he should like to do himself some bodily injury: to put his foot under the car of Juggernaut, had he been a Hindoo; or to have swung, with a hook through his loins, above the populace of some Indian fair.
All day long he loafed about in this savage mood, smoking innumerable cigars and twisting the ends of his moustache viciously.
He was only anxious for one thing, and that was for the arrival of the afternoon post. It is possible that he expected some line of explanation from Van Loal. If so, he was disappointed. That day's post brought him no letters.
After dinner he joined a whist party in the coffee-room. Later on the quartette composing the party adjourned to a private-room upstairs. Captain Ducie was ordinarily an abstemious man, especially when cards were on the tapis, but to-night he was reckless and took more wine than was good for him. It was nearly one o'clock when the party broke up, and Captain Ducie never afterwards remembered how he reached his own room.
That he reached his room in safety cannot be doubted, because he found himself safely in bed when he awoke next morning. But before that time arrived a strange scene had been enacted in Captain Ducie's bedroom.
As before stated, it was nearly one o'clock when he reached his room, and five minutes after getting into bed he had fallen into a broken troubled sleep in which he enacted over again the varied incidents of the evening's play. After moaning and tossing about for more than an hour, he woke up, feeling parched from head to foot and with a pain across his forehead like a fiery hoop that seemed to be slowly shrivelling up his brain. He got out of bed and emptied the decanter on his dressing-table at a draught. Then he plunged his head into a large basin of water, and that revived him still more. His head still ached, but not so violently as before. He went back to bed, cursing his folly for having taken so much wine. The night-light was burning as usual--dim and ghostly; barely sufficient to light up the familiar features of the room--for Captain Ducie had a strange superstitious horror of sleeping in the dark. He lay on his back, with his hands clasped above his head and with shut eyes. Sleep did not come back to him at once. His imagination went wandering here and there into odd nooks and corners that it had not visited for years. By-and-by he slid into a state of semi-unconsciousness, in which, without entirely losing all knowledge of time and place--of the fact that he was lying there in bed with a beastly headache--he yet mixed up certain scenes and events from dreamland, interfusing the real and the imaginary in such a way that for the time being the line of demarcation between the two was utterly lost, and where one ended and the other began, he would just then have found it impossible to determine. He was playing cards with one of the huge stone images that guarded the gates of Memphis, and was yet at the same time conscious of being in bed. He could see the grotesque shadows thrown by the night-light on the wall, and he could hear the ticking of his watch in the little pocket a few inches above his head. In his game with the stone image, in whose eyes he seemed to read the garnered patience of many centuries, he was aware that unless he could succeed in trumping his adversary's trick with the five of clubs, the game would be irrevocably lost, and he, Ducie, would be condemned to be buried alive for five hundred years in the heart of the great Pyramid. The twentieth deal would be the last, and if the five of clubs were not forthcoming by that time, the game would be lost and the dread sentence would be carried into effect.
Deal after deal went on, and still the five of clubs did not show itself. Even in the midst of his perturbation he heard and counted the strokes of a clock in the silent house. The clock struck three, and in the act of deliberating which card he should play next, Ducie remarked to himself that it still wanted two hours till daybreak.
From minute to minute his perturbation increased. He did his best to maintain a calm front before his calm adversary. As he peered into those terrible eyes, he knew that he must expect no mercy if he failed in producing the magic card. Forgiveness and revenge were alike unknown to the inexorable being before him, who was the embodiment of Law, serene and passionless, neither to be hurried nor hindered, keeping ever to the simple white line traced out for its footsteps from the beginning of the world, and as utterly regardless of human joy or human sorrow, as of the grumbling of the earthquake or the fiery passion of the volcano.
Slowly but surely the game went on. Ducie's adversary marked off every deal with a hieroglyph on a huge slate by his side. Fifteen--ten--five--the number of deals diminished one by one, and still the magic card was not forthcoming. Ducie went on playing with the quiet courage of despair. Five--four--three--two--one. The last deal had come but the five of clubs was still hidden in the pack. As he thought of the terrible fate before him his soul was utterly dismayed. Suddenly he heard a faint whisper in his ear: "Give me the Great Mogul Diamond and I will save you." "It is yours," he replied in the same tone. In a fainter whisper than before came the words: "Feel up your sleeve for the five of clubs."
Ducie put his hand up his sleeve and drew forth the magic card. As he dashed it on the table, cards and image melted silently away, all but the great calm eyes, which seemed to recede slowly from him while gazing at him with an inexorable gentleness that awed him, and crushed out of him all expressions of joy at his escape.
He had been conscious all this time of being in his own room at the Royal George, and without being thoroughly awake, this consciousness was still upon him when he found himself left alone. Was he really quite alone? he asked himself. Some voice had whispered in his ear only a minute ago, and a voice implied a bodily presence. But whose presence?
He would doubtless know before long, when this unknown being would come forth to claim the great Diamond.
Well, better part from the Diamond than be made a living mummy of, and be buried for five hundred years among dead kings and priests in the great pyramid.
Was it Shakspeare who talked about "dusty death?" It did not matter. He had been saved from a dreadful fate, and a long peaceful sleep for one hundred and five hours, fifteen minutes, and ten seconds--neither more nor less--was needed to compensate him for the mental and bodily torture from which he had just escaped.
Even while this fancy was simmering in his brain, he was aware of a strange, subtle odour which seemed to rise from the floor in faint, cloud-like waves, rising and spreading till every nook and cranny of the room was pervaded by it. It was a mist of perfume--a perfume far from unpleasant to inhale--heavy, yet pungent, odorous of the East, inclining to sleep and to visions of a passionless existence, undisturbed by all outward influences--such visions as must come to the strange beings whose most central thought is that of future absorption in the mystic godhead of the mighty Brahma.
Empires might change and die, the world might split asunder and chaos rule again, it mattered not to him. Only to rest, to lie there for ever, self-absorbed, indifferent to all mundane matters--that was the utmost that he craved.
The mist of perfume thickened, becoming from minute to minute denser and more penetrating. By this time it seemed to have permeated his whole being. It filled his lungs, it mingled with his blood, it saturated his brain; it glowed in him, a slumberous heat, from head to foot. The shadowy past of his life, the real present of his surroundings, grouped themselves in his brain like blurred photographs, which it was impossible for him to regard with anything more than a vague and impersonal interest. Nothing seemed real to him save the noiseless involved working of his own mind, working in and out like a shuttle with a fantastic thread of many colours, and with self for ever as the central figure.
While his mind had been growing thus strangely active, his body had been slowly losing--or rather suspending--its vitality. Slowly and imperceptibly his limbs had grown utterly powerless and inert, till now, if a kingdom had been offered him, he could not have raised hand or foot two inches from the bed. Not that he had any desire to move hand, or foot, or head, or tongue; only to lie still for ever, thinking his own thoughts, weighing the universe in the balance of his own mind and finding it wanting. Grant him but that, ye powers of earth and air, and for the rest, the word "nihil" might be written, and all things come to an end.
Suddenly through the mist of perfume that filled the room he saw, or seemed to see, a black and threatening figure rise from the floor close by his bedside.
"Surely," he thought to himself, "this must be the presence belonging to the voice that whispered in my ear as I was playing cards with the Memphian image. He has come to claim his pledge--he has come for the Mogul Diamond."
To him, just now, the Mogul Diamond was as valueless as a grain of sand. That black and threatening figure by his bedside might take it and welcome.
"Strange," he thought, "that the minds of men should ever grow to such trifles."
The power of despising others thoroughly, but without emotion, is one of the final products of pure intellect: and to that serene height he had now attained.
The black figure bent over him. In one hand it held a dagger.
Ducie felt no alarm. Such a human emotion as fear affected him not, nor quickened the equable pulses of his being.
As the face pertaining to the figure bent nearer to his own, he recognised it as the face of Cleon the mulatto. Even then he was not surprised. The mulatto made as though he would have struck Ducie to the heart, but stopped the dagger when it was within an inch of his breast. He passed his other hand across his forehead, and seemed to stagger.
Was it possible that the powerful odour was affecting him as it had affected his victim? He hurriedly replaced his dagger in its sheath, and putting his hand to Ducie's neck, as if he knew instinctively that such a thing was there, he felt for the chain from which was suspended the sealskin pouch that held the Diamond. He had no difficulty in finding the chain, nor the sachet, nor the Diamond. He extracted the great flashing gem from its hiding-place, even as Ducie had extracted it a few weeks before from the head of the Indian idol. He held it up between his eye and the night-lamp, and muttered a few guttural words to himself.
Then for the second time he passed his hand across his forehead and staggered. As if warned that he had not a moment to spare, he stuffed the Diamond into his mouth, gave a last scowl at the helpless figure before him, and disappeared behind the curtains that fell round the head of the bed.
Ducie was left alone.
All that had just taken place had affected him no more than if he had witnessed it as a scene out of a play. The Great Diamond was gone, and not even a ripple disturbed the waveless serenity of his mind.
But the subtle odour that had filled the room was slowly fading out, and as it grew fainter, so did the strange spell that had held Ducie captive begin to lose its power. His thoughts lost their crystalline clearness, becoming blurred and unwieldy. They no longer arranged themselves in proper sequence. Some of them became so cumbersome that they had to be dropped and left behind, while those that were more nimble strayed so far ahead as to be almost beyond recall. Then the nimble ones had to come back and try to pick up the unwieldy ones, till they all became jumbled together and lost their individuality. Finally, sleep came to the rescue and laid her mantle softly over them, and for a little while all was peace.
It was broad day when Captain Ducie awoke. Even before his eyes were open, or he was conscious of where he was, there was upon him the overwhelming sense of some great calamity.
His gaze wandered round the familiar room, and as it did so, he asked himself what it was that had befallen him.
Before he had time to consider the question, or even to answer it, a great shock went through his heart, and with a loud cry he sprang from his bed on to the floor.
"The Diamond!"
He felt for it. It was gone. Even before his fingers had time to touch the sealskin pouch his instinct told him that it was not there. He turned as white as a man at the point of death, and sank into a chair with a deep groan. His chin dropped on his breast, and two great tears rolled slowly from his eyes and fell to the ground.
A disarrangement of the carpet attracted his eye. It had been turned back for the space of a yard or so, leaving the boards bare. On this bare patch was a tiny cone of white ash.
Ducie's suspicions were aroused in a moment. He stooped and took up a pinch of the ash and smelt at it. It emitted a faint odour, similar to that more powerful odour which had overcome him so strangely in the course of the night.
No recollection of his dream, or of that still more singular vision in which Cleon had acted so prominent a part, had touched his memory since waking. But now, by one of those peculiar mental processes with which all of us are familiar, although we may not be able to explain them, the faint perfume that still pervaded the ash he had taken up between his fingers brought vividly back to his recollection every scene, real and imaginary, in which he had acted a part during his sleeping hours.
The five of clubs and his game of cards with the Memphian statue--he remembered that, and he at once put it aside as nothing more than a dream of a somewhat bizarre character. After that, the strange odour that filled his room, precisely similar to that of the ash in his hand; the sudden apparition of Cleon; the dagger, and the rape of the Diamond: were those things dreams or realities? Dreams, nothing but idle dreams, he should have replied at any other time, but with the sense of his irreparable loss eating into his very soul, he could only acknowledge that for him they made up a bitter reality.
Cleon had been there in person, and had succeeded in stealing the Diamond.
With a terrible string of imprecations on the mulatto's head, Ducie flung open the casement, and let in the sweet morning air. There were two more tiny cones of white ash, similar to the first, on other parts of the floor.
"That fiend of a mulatto has obtained access to my room," muttered Ducie to himself. "The powerful odour which had such a strange effect upon me must have been emitted by the pastilles, the ashes of which are before me. The pastilles were doubtless compounded of some strong narcotics, probably of certain Oriental drugs with the qualities of which Cleon was acquainted. I have been the victim of an infernal plot."
That Cleon had been there could not be doubted; but where was he now? Ducie halted in his troubled walk as this question put itself to him, and turned to examine the door. It was unbolted, but otherwise shut. His custom was to bolt it every night before getting into bed; but did he really bolt it last night? He could not recollect. Considering the state in which he was when he came to bed, was not the probability in favour of his having left it unfastened? In any case, that was now a point of little consequence. The Diamond was gone, and Cleon was doubtless gone with it. The mulatto was not such a fool as to remain in the neighbourhood of a man whom he had mortally offended, especially when his interests imperatively demanded that he should get safely away. Between him and Ducie the case was now one of life and death.
A fresh thought struck him and he turned to look at his watch. It was a quarter past six. The Southampton boat did not sail till a quarter to seven. Was it not most probable that Cleon, calculating on his, Ducie's, not awaking till after that time, would attempt to leave the island by the early boat? It was most probable that he would do so. "But if he leaves Jersey, I leave it with him," murmured the captain. "I shall certainly kill him the first opportunity I have of doing so."
Captain Ducie's window commanded a view of that end of the pier from which the steamer started. He could see a knot of passengers and their luggage already assembled. It was hardly likely that the mulatto would be one of the lot, still Ducie thought that he might as well satisfy himself on that point. On his dressing-table was a very powerful field-glass. Ducie took it up and directed it full on the clump of people at the end of the pier. His eye ranged over the component parts one by one, but no Cleon was to be seen. He was hardly disappointed, because he had not expected to find the mulatto there. Before putting down the glass, with an instinct that to him was like second nature, he swept the horizon of sky and sea with it. Elizabeth Castle and the whole expanse of St. Aubin's Bay were visible to him. The morning was clear--deceitfully clear--and Ducie's experienced eye told him that a change of weather was at hand. Coming back from the horizon his eye took in the features nearer home. One or two pair-oar boats were paddling lazily about just outside the harbour. Beyond them were three or four sailing boats with their white wings outspread to catch the light and fickle breeze which seemed this morning as if it could not make up its mind to blow steadily from one point for more than five minutes at a time. The outermost of the sailing boats was tacking out of the harbour with every inch of its tiny sails spread to catch the wind. In this boat were three men, two of them sailors, the third evidently a passenger, probably some visitor to the island going out on a fishing excursion. Such would have been Ducie's natural conclusion had he cared to think about the matter at all. The boat came for a moment within the range of his glass, and in that moment one of the three men turned his head as if to see what progress had been made from land. He turned his head and Ducie gave a start and a cry. The man who had looked back was none other than the mulatto.
One more steady look at the boat and its occupants and then Captain Ducie went on dressing with all speed. He understood the case in a moment. Cleon would not venture to leave the island by the steamer, fearing, probably, that she might be boarded by Ducie before leaving. His plan had been to hire a smack to take him either to the French coast or to Guernsey, and had it not happened to be dead low water about the time he ought to have got away, and the boats to be all lying high and dry in the harbour, two facts which had probably never entered into his calculations, he would have been a dozen miles from St. Helier by this time, and might have set pursuit at defiance.
In five minutes Captain Ducie was ready to start. His field-glass was slung over his shoulder. In one pocket of his gray shooting-jacket he carried a Colt's revolver, and in the other a flask containing brandy, and a few biscuits.
"Unless I am greatly mistaken," muttered Ducie to himself as he made his way with rapid strides towards the basin, "my friend Martin's little _Demoiselle_ will outsail yonder clumsy craft on a light wind, in which case Mr. Cleon and I may have an earlier reckoning than he dreams of."
Captain Ducie was fortunate enough to find his friend Martin smoking an early pipe by the edge of the basin, and watching his tiny craft with a loving eye as she curtsied lightly to the incoming tide. Martin was a handsome stalwart young fellow whose ancestors for five hundred years back had followed the same occupation in the same place. Ducie had employed him several times on fishing excursions, and the two were sufficiently well known to each other. His boat, _La Demoiselle_, was famed, in the hands of her master, as being one of the fleetest little craft on the island.
A few words sufficed to let Martin understand what was required of him, and three minutes later the Demoiselle with outspread wings was skimming saucily over the crests of the tide in pursuit of the other boat, which Martin pronounced to be the _Belle Rose_. Martin's assistant had been left behind in order that the _Demoiselle_ might sail as lightly as possible, Ducie himself engaging to assist in working the little craft.
_La Belle Rose_ had got a clear half-hour's start, and was working out nearly due south, that being her best tack for sailing as the wind then was. "She'll take a turn sou'east before another ten minutes is over," said Martin. "You see, sir, if she don't; and then she'll make straight for the Normandy coast."
"Martin," said Captain Ducie impressively, "on board yonder boat is a man who has robbed me of that which was of more importance to me than all else in the world."
"Master!" exclaimed Martin, in surprise.
"What I say is true. Now, listen. I want my revenge--as you would want yours were you in my place--eh?"
Martin nodded his head gravely, and drew a knife in pantomime.
"Consequently," resumed Ducie, "I want you to catch _La Belle Rose_. She has got a long start. Can you come up with her?"
"Master, I will try. The _Demoiselle_ has never failed me yet when I've put her to the proof, and I don't think she will fail me to-day. We must steer more easterly, and not as if we were following the other boat; and then when she tacks, as she must do soon, we shall have gained a full half mile on her."
Ducie was steering, and he saw that by following the sailor's advice, the _Demoiselle_ would cut off a large slice of the angle which must necessarily be made by the _Belle Rose_ before she could touch the nearest part of the French coast. Besides which, such a course would divert suspicion from their real intentions, and in a stern chase that goes for something.
Ducie lighted a cigar, and passed his flask forward to the young sailor. "We shall have rain and more wind, sir, before the day is three hours older," said the latter.
"So much the better," answered Ducie, quietly. "A gloomy deed should have a gloomy day. Martin! either the man in yonder boat or I will never see another sunrise. Perhaps neither of us may."
The young sailor gave his companion a look that was not unmixed with admiration. There was something that touched his wild notions of Justice in the idea of a man being his own Avenger.
Captain Ducie really meant what he said. He was thoroughly impressed with the belief that either for himself or Cleon that would be the last of earthly days. There was an element of gloom at the bottom of his nature--a dark abyss that had never been thoroughly sounded till a few hours ago. But the loss of his Diamond, preceded as it was by the unaccountable desertion of Mirpah Van Loal--Love and Fortune both gone in a few short hours--had served to raise a demon in his soul of which he had heretofore been thoroughly master. Now it mastered him, and he gave himself up to it without a struggle. But the grand calm of a thoroughbred Englishman did not desert him even now. The young sailor discerned no change in him from the Captain Ducie who had gone out fishing but four days before, save, perhaps, that his eyebrows seemed to come down a shade lower, and that the eyes themselves were a shade darker, and that his voice was somewhat graver than common. Otherwise there was no outward sign to tell of the change within, and yet Jean Martin had an instinctive sense that he had a desperate man aboard his tiny craft--one determined to carry out his own will to the end, however terrible that end might be.
Captain Ducie sat in the stern and steered the _Demoiselle_, taking the word occasionally from Jean Martin. His glass was beside him, and now and then he took a peep at the chase. The different tacks on which the two boats were steering would have seemed, in a landsman's eye, to be hopelessly widening the distance between them, but when the _Belle Rose_ suddenly yawed round and began to steer nearly due east of her previous course, Ducie saw the wisdom of Martin's advice. The two boats had, so to speak, been sailing down the opposite sides of a triangle. The Belle Rose had completed her side, and having turned the corner, was now sailing along the line of the base. But before she could reach the opposite end of the base, she would be intercepted by the _Demoiselle_.
Up to this time the progress of the _Demoiselle_. seemed to have been unheeded by the people in the _Belle Rose_. But as soon as it became evident to those in the latter that the two boats were rapidly nearing, and must in a few minutes cross each other's line within speaking distance, a slight commotion was visible on board the _Belle Rose_. Suddenly Martin, who had Ducie's glass to his eye, cried out, "They are getting suspicious of us. They are taking stock of us through their glasses--and--no--yes, by the nightcap of St. Jaques! there's a black man on board the _Belle Rose!_"
"He is the man of whom I am in pursuit," said Ducie, from the stern. Then he added:
"Keep your eye on them, Martin. Watch every movement, and tell me all you see."
"They have not seen your face yet, master, and they seem easier in their minds. But the black man keeps his glass to his eye. Ah, thief! scélérat! Jean Martin would like to have his fingers round your throat! Do you wish me to run close up to the _Belle Rose_, master? In five minutes you may, if you like, have you black hound in your grip."
"Come you to the tiller now, Martin, and steer to within twenty yards of the _Belle Rose_, but no nearer unless I tell you."
So the two men changed places, and Ducie went forward with the glass in his hand. Cleon on his side was watching every movement on board the _Demoiselle_. Up to the present time the person of Captain Ducie had been in great part hidden by the sail, but now that he came forward he was plainly visible. The moment Cleon's glass showed him that stern pale face, he fell back on his seat with an exclamation of terror, and seemed for a moment or two like one utterly paralysed. But the mulatto was by no means deficient in a sort of dogged animal courage, and the extremity of his peril left him no time for anything but immediate action. The two boats were now within fifty yards of each other, the _Demoiselle_ bearing down like an arrow on the track of the _Belle Rose_. The mulatto took one more peep through his glass at Ducie. In the hand of the latter was an ugly-looking revolver.
Cleon could not doubt for what purpose it was intended, and he was too well acquainted with Ducie's undoubted skill with the weapon, having seen him practice with it several times at Bon Repos, not to know that his chance of life would hang on the merest thread if Ducie were once to pull the trigger. One look at the revolver was sufficient. Cleon spoke to the man at the tiller. The course of the boat was at once altered. The sail lost its wind, flapped for a moment or two against the mast like the broken wing of a bird, then caught the breeze on the opposite tack, and the Belle Rose coming sharply round through the hissing water turned her nose nearly due west and began to retrace the way she had come. Captain Ducie smiled grimly. "If the cur thinks to escape me by going back to St. Helier and claiming the protection of the law, he will find himself mistaken. I will shoot him through the heart the moment his foot touches the pier."
Straight as a hawk after its quarry the _Demoiselle_ at once followed up in the wake of the other boat. The _Demoiselle_ had still some canvas to spare, and had she spread it, could easily have come up with the _Belle Rose_. But it was not Ducie's aim to do so.
Somewhat to Ducie's surprise, the _Belle Rose_ instead of turning northward and so making for the harbour of St. Helier, kept on her westerly course, and shot clean past the entrance, and so kept on till Elizabeth Castle was passed on the right, and both the boats found themselves skirting the outer edge of St. Aubin's Bay and Normont Point could be seen stretching out a rocky hand as if to bar their way. Ducie was puzzled, but said nothing. Could it be the mulatto's intention to skirt the western side of the island and make for Guernsey? But he would be no better off there than at Jersey. He, Ducie, would follow him to the very gates of Perdition.
Martin's prediction had been verified. By this time the morning had clouded over, the wind was freshening, and a light drizzling rain had begun to fall. It would be no pleasant voyage, truly, on such a day to cross the thirty miles of broken water between the two islands, and in so frail a craft. But what the _Belle Rose_ dared do, that also dared the _Demoiselle_.
Normont Point was quickly passed, and soon St. Brelade's romantic Bay opened into view. Martin still steered, and Ducie still crouched like a wary sentinel in the fore part of the boat. The mulatto was no longer to be seen. He had probably stretched himself out at the bottom of the boat, dreading lest Ducie might take it into his head to fire. Why Ducie had not already fired was probably a source of surprise to him.
La Moye Point which shuts in St. Brelade's Bay on the west, was neared and passed, and there, no great distance away, were the dread Corbière rocks wading out into the sea to entrap unwary mariners, smitten by the great waves and shrouding themselves in clouds of showy spray. And now the head of the _Belle Rose_ was turned northward, as if she were about to make for the shore. Ducie saw that the mulatto was about to take one of two courses: either to run full on the beach and so try to lose his pursuer among the rocks and caves which abound on that part of the island or else to run his boat through some of the narrow and dangerous passages between the Corbières, on the chance of the _Demoiselle_ not venturing to follow, and so gain sufficient headway by means of the short cut to render further pursuit hopeless. Ducie smiled to himself to think how futile the mulatto's efforts would be in either case.
It soon appeared that the hunted man had decided to take to the land as affording the best chance of escape. Close by was a small sandy nook that was sheltered between two protruding spurs of rock from the full swing of the tide. Into this tiny cove the _Belle Rose_ shot with furled sail, and before her keel had fairly touched the sand, the mulatto was out of the boat and scrambling up the shelving beach with the agility of a tiger cat. He just passed out of sight behind a broken fragment of rock as the _Demoiselle_ shot round the spur and followed the _Belle Rose_ into the little bay. Ducie pressed two sovereigns into the palm of Jean Martin and then leaped ashore. Cleon's footprints were plainly visible in the soft sand, and he followed them up with the instinct of a bloodhound.
Captain Ducie had one immense advantage over the man of whom he was in pursuit: he knew the Island thoroughly, having lived on it for several years when a boy at school. With that portion of it especially which stretches from St. Brelade on the south to Greve-de-Lecq on the north, he was intimately acquainted. Without much exaggeration it might be said that he knew every yard of the ground. Accordingly, when he had tracked the footprints of the mulatto to a point where the sandy beach ended and the shelving rock began, he troubled himself no further about them, but climbing straight up the face of the cliff with an agility that few men of his years could have imitated, he neither halted nor looked back till he had reached a small overhanging bluff that commanded the entire range of the precipice up which he had just clambered. This range of rock was only about a hundred yards in extent, and was shut in at the opposite end by another bluff which stretched out so far that its foot was already covered by the advancing tide.
From the smaller bluff, which Ducie had chosen as his eyrie, he could see every living thing larger than a rat that might move either along the sands or attempt to climb the rock. At the foot of this rock where it touched the sands there were several fissures large enough for two or three men to hide in. In addition to these there was a still larger opening known as the Cave of St. Lazare. Now, it was quite evident to Ducie that the mulatto must be in hiding either in one of the minor fissures or in the cave itself, so that all he had to do was to wait patiently till Cleon should choose to quit his lair.
It is true that he might have gone down to the sands and have sought an encounter with the mulatto at close quarters. But he had an ugly recollection of Cleon's skill with the knife; besides which he had something of that feeling which induces a cat to play with a mouse before finally putting it out of its misery. So he crept forward on his hands and knees over the wet grass to the edge of the bluff, and there ensconced himself behind a thick clump of brushwood whence he could see, without being seen, everything that might transpire on the sands.
His first care was to satisfy himself as to the condition of his revolver. When he had made his mind easy on that score, he took a pull at his brandy flask and munched a biscuit, but still keeping a wary watch for the faintest movement below.
The _Demoiselle_ and the Belle Rose had disappeared already, those in charge of them being intent on getting back to St. Helier as quickly as possible, for the weather was threatening. A drizzling rain was still falling, and Ducie was by no means sorry that such was the case: no prying tourists would think of visiting the cave on such a day.
The grim Corbière rocks were lashing themselves with whips of spray, like monks doing penance, and a heavy tide was rolling rapidly in. The strip of sand at the foot of the rocks was growing narrower from minute to minute, and soon the whole of it would be hidden.
"He must come out of his den before long, if he does not wish to be drowned like a rat in its hole," muttered Ducie to himself as he marked the creaming billows frothing up almost to the foot of the rock. "I shall not have long to wait."
In fact, only two courses were left open to the mulatto: either to show himself and climb the rock under cover of Ducie's revolver, or else to remain in hiding till the tide swept up and drowned him. From Ducie's post of vantage the narrow entrance to the cave--so narrow that only one person could enter at a time--was clearly visible.
The advancing tide had completely swallowed up the strip of sand and was licking the foot of the precipice before the slightest sign of human life was discernible below. Ducie crouching behind the bushes, with his hand on his revolver, and every nerve in his body on the alert, watched and waited in silence. The first thing that he saw was a yellow claw protruded from the interior of the cave. This claw grasped the edge of the rock, and next moment a yellow face was pushed out, the two terror-stricken bloodshot eyes of which roved frantically around as in search of some unseen foe. But there was nothing to be seen save the inrushing tide, the barren rock above and around, and a clump of brushwood on the cliff bending before the wind. Apparently reassured, he crept wholly out of hiding, and after another cautious look round, he turned his face to the cliff and began to climb. But he had not made more than two steps upward when the sudden ping of a pistol smote his ear, and the same instant a bullet struck the rock about two feet above his head, breaking off some fragments which rattled down into the sea. The mulatto gave utterance to a wild yell of terror, and loosing his foothold, he slipped back into the water which now reached up to his knees. Another moment and he had disappeared within the cave. Better run the risk of being drowned than again put himself in the way of that terrible revolver. It is doubtful whether he was aware that every high tide completely filled up the cavern. He may have thought that by climbing on to some of the higher ledges inside he would be safe till the subsidence of the water, by which time his enemy might probably be tired of waiting for him, or salvation might come in the shape of help from others. In any case, to venture outside the cave was certain death; to stop inside may have seemed to afford some chance of ultimate escape. But Ducie was well aware that to stop inside was certain death. When firing his revolver, his intention had been to frighten Cleon back into hiding, not to wound or kill him. It would be so much pleasanter if Cleon would allow himself to be quietly drowned in the cave, instead of compelling him, Ducie, to put a bullet through his head. There might be people foolish enough to construe such a transaction as the one last named into wilful murder. The former could be put down as nothing more than an ugly accident.
So Ducie watched and waited, fully determined that by one mode or the other Cleon should that day come by his death. The tide rose higher and higher, but no yellow horror-stricken face was seen again outside the entrance to the cave. Then Ducie knew what would happen within. By and bye the green lips of the waves kissed the roof of the doorway. Then Ducie knew that all was over, and that he had only to wait for the subsidence of the tide. He finished the brandy in his flask, and lighted a cigar, and waited.
It was considerably past mid-day before the water was low enough for him to venture into the cave. When he did venture in the water came up to his waist. He waded slowly in, grasping the slippery rock carefully at each step that he took. He knew what he should find inside, and for the first time a feeling of awe crept over him. At length he stood in the middle of the cave and ventured to look round. A dim green light pervaded the place, too faint to discern anything that might be there. Ducie was not unprepared for such an emergency. He had brought with him a small box of the wax matches he sometimes used for lighting his cigar. He struck one of these on the bottom of the box and held it aloft. It burned for a minute, and that minute served to show him a black shapeless heap of humanity lodged high up on one of the ledges of rock. To that spot the mulatto had climbed in the vain hope of escaping the ever-rising tide.
There was another ledge close to the one on which the body lay. On to this ledge Ducie climbed, and by kneeling on one knee and leaning over he could touch the dead man. He wanted to ascertain whether he had the Great Mogul Diamond hidden anywhere about his person.
"What if he has swallowed it? What if he has thrown it into the sea?" Ducie asked himself. Then his hand touched the dead man's cheek, and he shuddered from head to foot.
He paused for a moment or two, and with an intense effort steadied his nerves to go through the task he had set himself to do. It was gone through carefully and thoroughly, but the Diamond was nowhere to be found. At length Ducie paused in sheer despair.
"He has evidently made away with the Diamond when he found that he could not escape, and so has carried his revenge beyond the grave," muttered Ducie.
Suddenly a thought struck him. Once more he bent over the dead man, and with both hands wrenched open his mouth. Another instant, and he had found the Diamond hidden away under the tongue that would never speak more.
Strong man though he was, the revulsion of feeling was almost more than he could bear. Tears of joy came into his eyes. He needed a minute or two to recover himself. As soon as his heart began to beat more calmly, he wrapped the Diamond in his handkerchief and stuffed the whole into an inner pocket of his waistcoat. Then he leaped down on to the sandy floor of the cave, and leaving the dead man on his rocky bed, he waded out by the way he had come; and having breasted the hill, he set out at a sharp pace across the moorland on his way to St. Helier. His clothes had been soaked through and through in the course of the day, but just now he was not in a frame of mind to give any thought to such a trifle.