CHAPTER XXV

JENNY SENDS A MESSAGE

My affairs were hardly settled before I was whirled away to sea again. One day when I reached my lodging a minute before the stroke of six, puffing, for I had been running so as not to be late, I found a message from Dirk bidding me to make haste aboard. I gathered up my few belongings and ran for the quay, and it wasn't many minutes after my clambering aboard that the anchor was hauled in and we were under way.

I learnt next day from Dirk that he had just missed his quarry again. I thought I detected a suggestion of an accusation in his voice, and I cried out, "Oh, Dirk, I'm so sorry."

"Tush, kid, that business is settled," he said sharply.

But I believed that if it hadn't been for my disobedience on the Rancey he would have run his man to earth by now. However, it seemed that he had escaped. He had even left the country, and Dirk couldn't hazard a guess where he might be bound for.

"Slippery he is," said Dirk. "Knows all the tricks, and a few more besides. But I'll have him, Tommy, I'll have him."

I don't think I was very enthusiastic for Dirk's success. The matter left me rather cold. And yet I myself was bound, not on one quest of vengeance, but on two. There was my pledge to Jenny to fulfill; though how in the world I was to fulfill it I didn't know. And there was my father's murderer to hunt down, though Worthing seemed to have shouldered the responsibility for that.

It was a strange position that often set me fretfully brooding. I was but a boy, with a nature naturally responding to affection and gaiety and beauty, yet with the burden of two lives upon me that I was to track down and destroy. At times I felt that the thing was too absurd. I was under a delusion. Even my father's death began to grow unreal, till I wondered whether I hadn't merely dreamed the whole fantastic thing. I should have been glad enough to have awakened one morning to find it had all been a nightmare, and that my real life was just this wonder of sea-beauty about me, as the ship sped on day after day like a white bird, driving down into the south, with the skies growing bluer and bluer, till their wealth of colour was like a solemn song at my heart, very deep and holy.

Indeed, I gave myself up to the delight of this wonderful new world that was opening around me. I think I was an apt pupil, and Dirk was pleased enough with my progress; and more pleased with my behaviour, I believe, for I was able to take my share of duty with the men, though naturally I was treated with more leniency and consideration. And for my part I was thankful to Dirk for setting me to labour with the rest, rather than spoiling me as though I were either too small, or too much of a gentleman to soil my hands. It wasn't long before I could stow a royal single-handed, or do my trick at the wheel with the best.

But I mustn't dwell on this, for the brig _Revenge_ was all this while bearing me away from the real scene of my story. Indeed, the story of this time is Dirk's rather than mine, though there would be enough to fill a book if it weren't clean out of the course of my narrative. Suffice it to say that I grew bigger and stronger and browner. Also for some months I was strangely subject to moods which puzzled even myself. For though knowing I was behaving badly I would for days at a stretch have no word for a soul on board, often scowling at Dirk himself, when my heart was longing for the rough and kindly converse that was customary between us. Sometimes too I felt forced against my will to speak glumly and even angrily, for there seemed to be a stupid crying at my heart, and I was mortally afraid that a kind word would set me blubbering. So in self-defence I gave sharp words that sharp words might be returned. At night when I was curled up in my blankets I would sometimes cry myself to sleep, cursing myself for a baby, but unable to restrain my tears. For at times a desolating sense of loneliness overpowered me; the image of my father would rise before me, and I would stretch out my arms to him to clasp but a mocking emptiness of air. And then I would rock myself upon my bunk, that the noise might cover the sound of my sobbing; and my thoughts would turn to Jenny, and with the memory of her I would feel vaguely comforted and sink to sleep.

However, these moods were transitory merely, and little by little I mastered them till gradually they became rare, and at last my spirit came out into the sunshine. But I have recorded them because I think they kept alive in me the fluttering purpose to be revenged upon my own and Jenny's enemy. For it seemed to me that my sufferings were due to the cloud that had clung about my childhood. The shadow of fear had left my heart troubled and uncertain, and I felt there would be no real peace for me till the evil were rotted right out of my life. And with Jenny it was the same. Her life, too, would be perpetually darkened unless I could clear her path as well as my own of the gloom that lay upon it.

But my purpose became chastened from hate or revenge to one of duty, till I felt that whether I would or not my destiny would call and I would have to rise and meet it. So I kept my knife sharpened and my pistol primed, and practised daily at both weapons till hand and eye were as one thing working in unison.

And the days went by with sun and storm, and I increased in knowledge of sailor-craft and in love and understanding of the sea.

However, Dirk's quest didn't seem to prosper. Watching his lips at their continual and ominous chewing it seemed to me that he was repeating to himself that old vow of his: "I'll follow him to the end of the world, but I'll have his heart's blood." It seemed to me in my ignorance that the end of the world couldn't be very far away. For we passed from port to port always making south, and at length bore off for the Cape and the stormy eastern seas. I saw the shores of India and walked the streets of her bazaars, and learnt much of foreign ports and ways. But always I saw Dirk's face grow darker with the evil purpose at his heart still baulked and frustrated. I wondered if I, too, should come to wear such a weight of gloom upon my brow before I had accomplished my quest. Then unaccountably we bore back upon our tracks and steered for home, Dirk still hot upon the trail, though what the clue might be which he was following I couldn't guess, nor did I greatly care to question. So with the passing of the winter and the coming of the spring we were back in European waters, and steered one morning into the bay of Naples.

And here my own story began again, for I came upon Picardino, who had wandered home to his native land.

I had just made the purchase of a fine stiletto, and was seated in a tavern sipping wine while I admired the tapering steel, when I heard a voice suddenly break out into a ripple of song, and immediately I remembered the minstrel of the _Snow Man_. I slipped the stiletto under my waist-cloth, and turning cried, "Picardino!"

He actually stopped in his singing, and leaping towards me smothered me with kisses, chattering his delight in such a race of mingled English and Italian that I could scarcely follow a word of it, but guessed at the meaning by the profuse and ardent embraces he treated me to.

It was some while before I could tear myself free. For the first onslaught over he gazed at me for a moment, and then with a cry of "Leetle Tommee!" returned to the attack.

Then he whisked me away to another tavern and up a dark flight of stairs to a little room, evidently his lodging, into which he ushered me as though I were a duke, bowing for me to enter. At length we were seated, pledging each other in execrable wine, clinking glasses, and drinking with faces almost touching. And nothing would satisfy him but that I must tell my story. Where had I gone that night? What had I been doing? And so on and so forth.

I told him as much as I thought he should know, merely referring to my father by saying he was dead.

"Dead! Ahh!" he exclaimed, clapping a hand to his heart. "Yess, in the fierr. That sad. And he such an arteest! Yess, how he play upon the gueetarr! And you desolate, yess. How I see eet." Once more he flung his arms about me and cried, "Ah, leetle Tommee, how you desolate! You come with Picardino, yess?"

But I told him I was a sailor; and then he would have the story of my wanderings. So I told him of Dirk, and how he was caring for me and training me; though of course I said nothing of the purpose of our voyage. I hinted that Dirk had been trading, which indeed was true too, for Dirk had made it part of my education to show me about the booths and markets of the East, and I had a stock of purchases on board by which I hoped materially to increase my capital.

Then it was my turn to question Picardino, but so vigorously did he ply me for more details of my life that it was no easy matter to edge in a word about himself. However, at length I did manage to say, "Tell me, Picardino, where did you vanish that night? And who was it chasing you?"

"Ah, Tommee"--he smiled knowingly--"that secret."

Then he leant forward, and whispering very quietly as though the affair were a profound mystery he said, "Picardino know manee thing. He travell heer and theer. Ladees they say heem, 'You speak my sweethearrt thees and that,' and papas they angree. Yess, and eef they catch heem eet ees no pleasant for Picardino. But he plentee love the ladees. Ah, the sweet theengs they arre! He geeve much to caree message. Yess, eef eet were hees blood."

He laid his hands across his heart with a theatrical gesture that amused me; and yet he seemed earnest enough in his story. The picture of the little minstrel wandering from hall to hall, carrying love-messages from sweetheart to sweetheart and evading the wrath of enraged papas was one that flattered my sense of the romantic.

He continued his story by telling me of all the wiles that the ladies resorted to in getting their messages through to him, sometimes humming a song that told its own tale, sometimes tossing him a coin with a name scratched into it, sometimes speaking to him in the language of flowers. It was amusing enough, and indeed I found a strange charm in the sentimental glamour of his amorous adventures. He coloured his stories with such an impassioned glow of whole-hearted appreciation that I was carried off my feet, and wished that I too had a message for him to carry to my sweetheart, or better still one to receive from him from the lady of my love, imprisoned in a lonely tower by a tyrannous papa.

However, it seemed that he wasn't always successful. He began to wax melancholy because occasionally he failed to find some lost or erring swain and bring him back to his lady-love. Even then he was in search for more than one faithless truant, and he began to tell me of this and that disloyal one he was still hunting for. Then of a sudden he broke off, and looking at me in a strange enquiring way said, "Tommee! Why, yess, eet was Tommee. But you grown. She say a leetle boy. You beeg as Picardino; beeger. Ah, yess, I not theenk."

Before I was aware of what he was about he brushed his hand across my forehead and smoothed back my hair, crying out with delight as he did so, "Yess, eet ees. The scarr, as she say. Tommee, I have message for you."

I was thrown into a violent flutter of emotion. It was so unexpected, so incredible. That we should have been tossed together like this, I from the East and he from the North, was strange enough in itself; but that he should have a message for me, a message from Jenny, was a wonder beyond belief.

"Tell me," I said, hardly able to form the words.

But before he would speak I had to endure his winks and nods and smiles and sighing innuendoes of "Ah, the leetle boy! But he man of the worrld! He have sweethearrt! Ah, that ees preetty, yess!"

But at last he told me the story. He had made a second visit to the "beeg house" on the moors, in spite of his vow never to go near it again. He shuddered as he mentioned the haunted place. However, this time he had been civilly welcomed; and by his description of the Captain with his kind fierce eyes, and of the "leetle gerrl with the voice of a queen," I knew he wasn't deceiving me. "And the leetle ladee...."

"Jenny," I cried.

"Jenny," he repeated. "Ah, that ees right. She send message to leetle boy with scarr under the hairr. I say, 'Where I find heem?' She say, 'Hees name Tommee; you ask.' I shrug shoulderr and take message, for I no can say no. She so decided leetle gerrl."

I laughed at the picture, for it was so like Jenny. She had sent me forth on my quest in the same way, without a thought as to how I might possibly succeed.

Picardino seemed to understand me, for he smiled and said, "Ah, you know the mannerr, yess. But when she say Tommee I not think of my Tommee. That foolish of me."

I can't report in full the rigmarole he treated me to. The heart of the message was that I was to seek out Jenny in London. In London! I must have been near her then before I had set out on this voyage. She wanted me. I was to go to her at once. And the precious address was supplied.

At once! That was a year ago. In a dim dismay I wondered whether Jenny would forgive me for deserting her so long. It seemed difficult to make excuses to her.

However, she wanted me. I was in a glow of expectation at that. She wanted me. And I was bound for England now, I believed. I would go to her without delay. Eagerly I pressed Picardino for fresh details of my little sweetheart, for I understood now the meaning of all the strange turbulent shyness of the past year. I was a man of the world, as Picardino had said. I had learnt something of the ways of men and women. And I knew that the fermenting uneasiness that the thought of Jenny had aroused in me meant merely that I loved her.

So with a heart in a maze of wonder and delight I took my leave of Picardino, even returning his embraces with effusion. So kindly did I feel towards the world that when I plunged into the darkness of the night which had caught me unawares I tossed a silver coin to a whining beggar-woman who was crouching at the tavern door. My generosity seemed to overwhelm her, for she clutched my hand and kissed it fervently, and then opening my palm wide to the light of the flaring lamp in the porch she rattled off into a long list of blessings that awaited me on my journey through life. But I was in a hurry, for I had overstayed my time. I wrenched my hand free, for she was gripping it tightly and studying it intently. As I broke from her I thought she glanced keenly at me as though there were some fate in store for me which she didn't care to foretell. But I thought nothing of it and sped on my way, repeating over and over the address Picardino had given me, and fingering Jenny's coin beneath my jacket.

I threaded my way through the twisting streets, hardly knowing where I was wandering. Something of that strange elation I had felt when waiting for my father seemed to possess my spirit. A wonderful sense of uplifting lightness buoyed me on and wafted me forward. I was going to meet my Jenny!

I came out upon the shore, and for a moment gazed to right and left to take my bearings. But just as I identified the brig _Revenge_ lying out white and ghostly on the dark waters, I felt a numbing blow at my head. I didn't altogether lose my senses. I realized I was being bound, that a great cloth lay tight over my face. But I couldn't summon any strength to resist my captor. I was hauled away by the shoulders, my legs trailing in the sand, and soon I found myself being lifted on board a little rowing-boat where a second figure helped to secure me in the stern. There I sat trussed up and helpless while the boat was rowed out into the bay.