Part 17

"You should have a rest for a day or two; I would advise your going home and to bed."

"I shall do so," said Anthony, "for my legs are not over-strong under me; and they are telling me of it, more and more plainly every step I take."

Mr. Sparhawk walked with him up Front Street.

"The cunning of these villains," said the little man; "the cunning of them is past all belief. They have managed it so that pillage is becoming a recognized thing; rapine has public approval; loot is so common we think nothing of it."

Anthony smiled.

"I would not go so far as that," he said; "but I agree that there is a deal of guile round about us."

"We boast of our open trade and commercial candor," said Mr. Sparhawk. "We set ourselves up as superior to the Spaniards who hold every port and river they control under private tribute. But, if the truth were known, we have our share of mercantile malpractice here. There are places," said he warmly, "that are regarded as above reproach, but which are charnel-houses of business honor; there are men who sit in the full light of public confidence, weaving plots as shameless as any in the art of the spider."

"Where is the law?" asked Anthony.

"The law is inadequate, and I sometimes think, shrewdly kept so."

Mr. Sparhawk held to this strain until they reached Anthony's lodgings in Sassafras Street. The walk had done the young man no good, and his face was white as he said good-by to the little man at the door. Mr. Sparhawk noted this.

"No," said he, "I will help you to your room. These hurts of yours have taken a deal more of your vitality than you think."

Anthony was glad enough to put some of his weight upon Mr. Sparhawk in going up the steep stairs; and the little gentleman also aided him in getting off his clothes and into bed. And then he brewed him an excellent drink.

"And now sleep," said he. "It will help you more than anything else." He lifted the window so that the air might blow in and do its share of the healing; he nodded in a most friendly and obliging fashion as he was about to go, and then his eyes chanced upon one of the bulky old ledgers lying upon a table. "What?" said he, "a ledger? Do you still use your spare time of an evening, so?"

Said Anthony:

"Open the door there." Mr. Sparhawk did so; he saw in the inner room piles of books of a similar kind, and his face changed expression; his eyes met those of Anthony quickly. "They are those which have gone before, and come after, the one on the table," said the young man.

Mr. Sparhawk stroked his chin.

"It is odd how the history of Rufus Stevens' Sons attracts you," said he.

"Not all of it," said Anthony. "But those things which I find of sharp importance I set down in a little book of my own."

The greedy look in Mr. Sparhawk's face increased.

"That, too, is here, I suppose," said he, and he looked about.

Anthony's coat lay upon a chair beside his bed; he reached out and thrust a hand into the breast pocket; but it came out empty. Mr. Sparhawk saw his expression change.

"You carried it there?" said he.

"Yes," said Anthony, "and it's gone!"

Mr. Sparhawk smiled, and nodded.

"Are you surprised?" he asked. "What else was there to expect? Have you not been on board _Le Mousquet_?"

Anthony lay looking at the ceiling; Mr. Sparhawk stood with his hand on the door-latch.

"However," said the little man consolingly, "your loss is not, as the insurers of ships say, complete. You still have the ledgers; and what they've yielded once they'll yield again."

And so, with a nod and a smile and a good-by he was gone. Anthony lay with the coverlet drawn up under his chin, and propped high with pillows; his head throbbed and swam; he drowsed between wakefulness and sleep, and strange pictures lit up his mind. There was a vessel that crossed his sleep--a slim, swift vessel, her sails filled with mist, and driving away over a darkened sea. She was fleeing from him, and he was following, making slow head against winds and storms. Though the ship was a great way off, he could see into her cabin; there was a light there, a yellow light with a spot of red at its heart--and beside this sat a man who wore a patch over one eye, and he smirked over Anthony's note-book, which he held in his hand.

There were strange things in that book; there were matters that opposed each other fancifully, and told of ships and men and cargoes, and places; and there were other things, like shouted lies. Anthony had studied them and knew them well. And now, as he drowsed, the cabin was gone, the ship had disappeared, the sea had changed to land; but his thought still had to do with books. He sat before a great many of them; they were heavy, sober, and clean; they were the ledgers of Rufus Stevens' Sons, the solid books of a solid house; surely in them no wrong could thrive. But there were flaming lightnings in the sky; the world was full of pain and weariness, and the books held knowledge which he must have; so he began to open them. They seemed countless; each was like the other in its dull leather, and their rows stretched across plains and streams, and through cities, away among vague spaces, and disappeared in the rising of mists, the booming of waters, and the dashing of spray.

And now, under his hand, were the books of Lucas, and the books of Carberry. These he especially desired. They were thick and seemed to promise pleasant things; but they opened evilly; the mind sprang back from their pages, repelled. But, for all that, they were well and carefully written, just as he had been told they would be. Lucas had set down his statements in a useful hand, clear and with excellent spacing. Carberry's way was well ordered; he had a confident, clerkly smoothness, which all but covered astonishments that caught the breath from one's lips. But Anthony found himself held among the pages of Lucas much oftener, for Lucas's day, so it seemed, had been one of rare daring; there had been courage and devilment in his time, and no great care. The waters had been awash with costly stuffs; ships were sucked to their doom, and dead men had floated down the byways of the sea.

Now he saw a river sealed with ice, and through the ice countless bowsprits poked forlornly; many eyes looked through a thickening mist, eyes with black patches over them; then a ship loomed through it, a ship with sides as wide as the world; a man in a bo'sun's-chair was let down; he held a pen and ink-pot and along the water-line of the ship he wrote unreadable things in a practiced hand. Anthony strove to understand the words, but could not. He fought with the mists to see the man's face. Once he fancied it was a clean-cut, handsome one with cold eyes and a sneer about the lips; but as he pronounced Tarrant's name the face changed. It was now a bright one, full of inspiration and eager purpose. Anthony looked to find how the man sat in the chair and saw he was nursing a lame foot. But it could not be Charles! For the man was of splendid bulk; as he wrote he laughed, and the mist whirled at the sound, and the waters leaped and threw it back.

And then the books came again,--the weary, weary books,--greater than before and bursting with threats. The pages were hard to turn; it took all the strength he had to come to the smallest thing, and, oddly enough, between the leaves he found those muskets and pistols which he had thought at the bottom of the river. And, as he took up each, the touch of the iron told him he'd best put them carefully by for need in a future time. And this he did, for the menace in the books made his heart feel cold.

Here there was a blank: and then he found himself traveling an endless road, through a waste place, and carrying a burden, a torturing, breaking burden, the essence of which could be nothing but despair. When he felt he must sink under it, it suddenly became light and desirable; he wanted passionately to go on with it. And then he saw it was a girl, and that she hated him; so he put her down, and talked with her. All the air about her was filled with words, each with wings like a bat; they whispered in her ear as they flitted by, and it was the evil of these words that made her hate him.

He looked along the endless road, through the waste places; a bleak sky lowered over it, the air that stirred its dust was mournful, and the soul in him grew fearful that he must travel it alone! Where was her father? He would speak to him, for her father was wise with years and must know the venom of false words. And then she was no longer there; her father stood in her place, an old, old man, with a white, high-held head; and to him Anthony began eagerly to pour out his thoughts. But he stopped, for he saw a scar on the old man's face, the puckered red mark of an ancient sword-stroke; and the old man moved toward him with the soft sure steps of a great cat. Anthony, in horror, protested; and he could hear his voice lifting through all space against the cold derision in the aspect of Monsieur Lafargue. Then, with the damp of fear on him, he labored heavily through the zone of half-sleep and burst into wakefulness.

He was still in bed next day. Dr. King came to see him; he had his breakfast, which the good woman who rented the lodgings brought him, and then lay back, thinking. The spring day fluttered in at the window; a man who had early greens to sell chanted their quality and price in the street; a knife-grinder's bell tinkled steadily along; the voices of some children arose gleefully from a garden. There was a knock on the door, and Captain Weir came in. He shook Anthony's hand, and sat coldly down by the bed.

"Sparhawk visited us at the counting-room this morning," said he, "and we were astonished by what he had to tell. What does the doctor say?"

"That I shall be fit and out to-morrow," said Anthony.

"That is excellent. The rogues," said Captain Weir, "to attack you in the open street, and carry you aboard ship!" His green, stone-like eyes searched Anthony. "She was a Frenchman, I understand."

"She flew the French flag," said Anthony.

Captain Weir shook his head.

"I understand," said he. There was a moment's silence; his eyes still searched the young man, and then he spoke again. "It was quite fortunate that Sparhawk walked home with you yesterday. He says you went quite weak."

"More so than he thought," said the young man.

"You have very pleasant quarters here." Captain Weir looked about, approvingly. "Quite snug for a bachelor; your pipes and tobacco, your wine-flask and brandy-bottle near at hand, your books on a rack where they may be had in a moment." His eyes, like those of Mr. Sparhawk, rested upon the bulky ledgers; and he smiled oddly. "That is the last of them, I suppose," said he. And, as Anthony nodded, the captain went on: "All the others have gone back to your uncle."

"No," said Anthony; "those of interest are inside there."

Captain Weir laughed; but his eyes narrowed as he said:

"If Sparhawk had seen those, he'd have marveled at your industry."

"He saw them," said Anthony. "We had some conversation about them."

"Trust an old gossip like him for that," said the captain, the narrowed eyes cold and green, and more like stone than ever. "Nevertheless, he's a useful little man, and with quite a place in the community."

The two talked for some time of Anthony's misadventure; then Captain Weir arose to go.

"We shall expect you to-morrow, then?" said he.

"I think I can safely say that," answered Anthony.

"Your uncle will be interested to hear your story," said Captain Weir. "It is not a usual one." He stood looking down at Anthony; the side of his face was turned toward the window and the sword-cut along his jaw was red and puckered and angry-looking. "No," he added, and shook his head, "it is not at all a usual one."

Then he bade Anthony good day, and warned him to rest quietly; then the door closed behind him, and the young man lay listening to his footsteps as they sounded on the stairs.

XXVI

However, it was not until the second day had passed that Anthony felt firm enough on his legs to go to the counting-room. It was about noon when he set out, and he noted that there seemed an unusual hubbub in the streets. Knots of people were gathered before taverns; public places frequented by merchants seemed to bristle with excitement. Anthony saw no one with whom he was acquainted, and so he had reached the London Coffee-House before he learned the cause of it all. Here a placard was pinned to a board; he stopped to read it, and so learned that the American merchantman _Eclipse_ had been taken on the high seas by a French letter-of-marque. His brows knitted with interest at this; and so, instead of turning into High Street as he would have done, he continued along Front to Walnut Street, and into the City Tavern.

There were many there, and they had the appearance of having sat at the tables in the public rooms many hours; pipe smoke eddied under the low ceiling, and glasses were drained and refilled with a steadiness that was eloquent of the public mind; voices were at high pitch, words were hot with resentment, and fists banged upon the tables.

Mr. Stroude sat with his friends about him. He talked solemnly. From the first,--from the very first, so he said he had known he was a marked man. Vainly the friends sought to break down this conviction; but he was resolved, and they could not budge him. A deal of his substance had gone into that ship, much more than even his intimates realized. The heel of adversity was heavy upon his neck; and God keep the day when those who heard him should know the weight of it. A voluble friend strove to cheer him up. There was no knowing what would happen. The worst had already occurred, and anything more would be for the best. And, look you! The pirate, now that he had taken Stroude's ship, must bring her into an American port, as there were no others open to him. And then we should see! Had not the Government denied the right of the French to equip or man vessels of war in American waters; and in the face of this could the _Eclipse_, or her contents, be condemned or sold? Would the weakest of governments permit an outrage to be carried so far? To a man, the friends agreed that it would not; and one of them directed a waiter to bring more brandy.

After Mr. Stroude had drunk of this, he said he was an Englishman, and that he had always taken pride in the fact. Yes, he sat in the midst of them, confessedly English; he felt his nationality to the marrow, and he would take not one jot of it back. These things, he knew, placed his merchandise in all the greater jeopardy; but that could not alter his feelings. The cargo of the _Eclipse_ was his and so was not under the protection of the United States when on the high seas. The ship, being American owned, he would grant them; but the cargo--no. His personal case was weak; it was pitifully weak! But what could he do?

Anthony saw Mr. Sparhawk some little distance away; and talking with him was a lank man in baggy small-clothes and a ratty-looking wig.

"Sympathy," said the lank man, "is of no use when the loss is one of hard money. And, more than that, it is given to the wrong person when it is given to Stroude. If the cargo is condemned, does he suffer? He does not. Who does?" The lank man thumped his lean chest. "I do," said he.

Mr. Sparhawk held up a quieting hand.

"The rumor is," said he, "that the _Eclipse_ was taken within the capes. If that be so, there is an end of it. Hostile acts have been done within jurisdiction of the United States; American property has been seized by a vessel under a foreign flag."

"I have been ill advised," complained the lank man. "When it was known that Stroude was an Englishman and a thing like this likely to happen, I should have been cautioned."

"If you will look back, Mr. Baily," stated the perky little man, "you will recall that you were not only cautioned, you were warned. But you did not choose to use the information given you except as a means of getting a higher premium on the risk."

"But who would have thought it possible that these wretches would go to such a length?" pleaded Mr. Baily. "In this day, right under the noses of the authorities; and now they are laughing at us all, and making ready to divide the spoil."

Mr. Baily refused any such cheering thing as a drink, and went away, insisting that the worst had happened. Anthony approached Mr. Sparhawk, who sat with a composed countenance in the midst of the excitement, and exchanged greetings with him.

"I am pleased to see you so firm upon your feet," said Mr. Sparhawk. "A little care, now, and you'll do well enough." He fingered the stem of his glass and smiled easily at the room. "Well," said he, "the further venturings of your friends in _Le Mousquet_ have made a deal of stir."

Anthony nodded.

"It was an impudent thing to do," said he. "And I'm inclined to think, it also had in it some elements of stupidity."

Mr. Sparhawk smiled, crossed one leg over the other, and dandled his foot.

"A little good wine at this hour is a comforting tonic for an ailing man," said he. And thereupon he spoke to a waiter, who brought them a liquid that was like pale gold. This Mr. Sparhawk sipped approvingly and nodded over the glass's edge at Anthony. "There is a deal of concentrated life in a thing like this," said he; "and it's often found to hold many a problem ready reasoned." They sat silently for a space, allowing the flavor of the wine to take possession of them; then Mr. Sparhawk nodded through the pipe smoke and huddles of debating men. "Who do you see at yonder table--there, under the portrait of Admiral Jones?"

There was Tarrant, lolling in a chair, and plainly having drunk too much; beside him was the big young man, showing his fine teeth in ready smiles, and keeping the bottle ready to his hand. Rehoboam Bulfinch sat with them, a meager drink before him, and folded up like a scraggy vulture.

"Tarrant," said Mr. Sparhawk, "served his country for a short space, and has done his utmost to discredit it ever since. And Blake is as infamous a ruffian as ever trod a deck."

"Blake," said Anthony, his attention quickened.

"He of the great body and the engaging laugh," said Mr. Sparhawk.

Anthony valued the rare drops upon his tongue with true appreciation; he looked toward the big young man and smiled.

"There is a man," pronounced Mr. Sparhawk composedly, "who should have been gibbeted five years ago. He has done more mischief among shipping than any other sea-thief since Edward England; and England's day was a century since."

"I heard a deal of Blake in the gulf and in the Carribbees a few years back," said Anthony. "The nearest I ever came to meeting him was while I was in a Spanish brig trading in those waters; two days out of Martinique we sighted him and ran him topsails under by nightfall. But once I had a communication from him."

"Ah!" said Mr. Sparhawk.

"He was a part and parcel of the New Orleans Government, and had a fleet of luggers among the islands and reefs at the mouth of the Mississippi. He had an agent in the city--a fat old spider whom I had to speak plainly to on one occasion; and because of this I could not afterwards get a ship, the owners being afraid to have on board a man who had affronted the pirate. So I began to give my attention to matters ashore, and it was then that Blake sent me the piece of writing. My interference had cost him some choice plunder, and he expressed regret that my change of occupation put him out of the way of meeting with me. But he hoped chance would throw us together at some future time." Under the swathes of bandages, Anthony cocked his eye in the direction of the freebooter. "Now that I see him," said he, "a thought troubles me. It may be that he does not know who I am."

"It is possible," said Mr. Sparhawk.

"On that chance," said the young man, "I think I will speak with him."

He made his way through the gesticulating merchants and stood at the table where the three men sat. Tarrant looked at him with sneering insolence. Bulfinch pushed back his chair; but Blake's manner was of cheery tolerance.

"What?" said Blake. "Is it possible? Here you are, active as a cat, and I thinking you on your back through a bad mishandling."

"Your friends made a shrewd try to bring that state about," said Anthony. "But I managed to overreach them." His gaze went to Tarrant and back again to Blake. "Your one-eyed man seemed willing enough; but he has little talent for desperate work. In a crisis he fumbles like an old woman."

Blake roared at this.

"Like an old woman!" said he. "By God, I must tell him that!"

Anthony stood looking down at the man, and, what with his pale, drawn face and his swathed bandages, he made a grim figure enough.

"It was only a moment ago that I learned your name," said he. "And the sound of it recalled a letter I once had of you at New Orleans."

Blake wrinkled his brows good-humoredly.

"A letter," said he. "Well, now! As I write very seldom, you must be a person of even more consequence than I thought."

But Anthony paid no heed to this mockery.

"I am the same Anthony Stevens who once spoiled your plundering of certain ships owned by Señor Montufars. The letter expressed a pious hope that chance would one day throw me in your way. And, as you see, it has."

Blake leaned back in his chair, shaking with mirth.

"Now," gasped he, "could anything be more like you? It's just what I'd have expected you to do--full of gallantry, open and anxious to come to grips with the immediate occasion." He gestured his appreciation. "Let me assure you, sir, now that I _have_ chanced upon you, I wouldn't have missed the meeting for the world."