"Afternoon?" repeated Mr. Tredgold, blankly. "The afternoon I was–" He drew himself up and eyed her angrily. "Do you mean to say that you think I took the thing?"
"It doesn't matter what I think," said the girl. "I suppose you won't deny that your friends have got it?"
"Yes; but you said that it was the afternoon I was here," persisted the other.
Miss Drewitt eyed him indignantly. The conscience-stricken culprit of a few minutes before had disappeared, leaving in his stead an arrogant young man, demanding explanations in a voice of almost unbecoming loudness.
"You are shouting at me," she said, stiffly.
Mr. Tredgold apologised, but returned to the charge. "I answered your question a little while ago," he said, in more moderate tones; "now, please, answer mine. Do you think that I took the map?"
"I am not to be commanded to speak by you," said Miss Drewitt, standing very erect.
"Fair-play is a jewel," said the other. "Question for question. Do you?"
Miss Drewitt looked at him and hesitated. "No," she said, at last, with obvious reluctance.
Mr. Tredgold's countenance cleared and his eyes softened.
"I suppose you admit that your father has got it?" said the girl, noting these signs with some disapproval. "How did he get it?"
Mr. Tredgold shook his head. "If those three overgrown babes find that treasure," he said, impressively, "I'll doom myself to perpetual bachelorhood."
"I answered your question just now," said the girl, very quietly, "because I wanted to ask you one. Do you believe my uncle's story about the buried treasure?"
Mr. Tredgold eyed her uneasily. "I never attached much importance to it," he replied. "It seemed rather romantic."
"Do you believe it?"
"No," said the other, doggedly.
The girl drew a long breath and favoured him with a look in which triumph and anger were strangely mingled.
"I wonder you can visit him after thinking him capable of such a falsehood," she said, at last. "You certainly won't be able to after I have told him."
"I told you in confidence," was the reply. "I have regarded it all along as a story told to amuse Chalk; that is all. I shall be very sorry if you say anything that might cause unpleasantness between myself and Captain Bowers."
"I shall tell him as soon as he comes in," said Miss Drewitt. "It is only right that he should know your opinion of him. Good-night."
Mr. Tredgold said "good-night," and, walking to the door, stood for a moment regarding her thoughtfully. It was quite clear that in her present state of mind any appeal to her better nature would be worse than useless. He resolved to try the effect of a little humility.
"I am very sorry for my behaviour in the garden," he said, sorrowfully.
"It doesn't matter," said the girl; "I wasn't at all surprised."
Mr. Tredgold recognised the failure of the new treatment at once. "Of course, when I went into the garden I hadn't any idea that you would be in such an unlikely place," he said, with a kindly smile. "Let us hope that you won't go there again."
Miss Drewitt, hardly able to believe her ears, let him go without a word, and in a dazed fashion stood at the door and watched him up the lane. When the captain came in a little later she was sitting in a stiff and uncomfortable attitude by the window, still thinking.
He was so tired after a long day in town that the girl, at considerable personal inconvenience, allowed him to finish his supper before recounting the manifold misdeeds of Mr. Tredgold. She waited until he had pushed his chair back and lit a pipe, and then without any preface plunged into the subject with an enthusiasm which she endeavoured in vain to make contagious. The captain listened in silence and turned a somewhat worried face in her direction when she had finished.
"We can't all think alike," he said, feebly, as she waited with flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes for the verdict. "I told you he hadn't taken the map. As for those three idiots and their harebrained voyage—"
"But Mr. Tredgold said that he didn't believe in the treasure," said the wrathful Prudence. "One thing is, he can never come here again; I think that I made him understand that. The idea of thinking that you could tell a falsehood!"
The captain bent down and, picking a used match from the hearthrug, threw it carefully under the grate. Miss Drewitt watched him expectantly.
"We mustn't quarrel with people's opinions," he said, at last. "It's a free country, and people can believe what they like. Look at Protestants and Catholics, for instance; their belief isn't the same, and yet I've known 'em to be staunch friends."
Miss Drewitt shook her head. "He can never come here again," she said, with great determination. "He has insulted you, and if you were not the best-natured man in the world you would be as angry about it as I am."
The captain smoked in silence.
"And his father and those other two men will come back with your treasure," continued Prudence, after waiting for some time for him to speak. "And, so far as I can see, you won't even be able to prosecute them for it."
"I sha'n't do anything," said Captain Bowers, impatiently, as he rose and knocked out his half-smoked pipe, "and I never want to hear another word about that treasure as long as I live. I'm tired of it. It has caused more mischief and unpleasantness than—than it is worth. They are welcome to it for me."
CHAPTER XV
Mr. Chalk's foot had scarcely touched the deck of the schooner when Mr. Tredgold seized him by the arm and, whispering indistinctly in his ear, hurried him below.
"Get your arms out of the cabin as quick as you can," he said, sharply. "Then follow me up on deck."
Mr. Chalk, trembling violently, tried to speak, but in vain. A horrid clanking noise sounded overhead, and with the desperation of terror he turned into the new cabin and, collecting his weapons, began with frantic haste to load them. Then he dropped his rifle and sprang forward with a loud cry as he heard the door close smartly and the key turn in the lock.
He stood gazing stupidly at the door and listening to the noise overhead. The clanking ceased, and was succeeded by a rush of heavy feet, above which he heard Captain Brisket shouting hoarsely. He threw a despairing glance around his prison, and then looked up at the skylight. It was not big enough to crawl through, but he saw that by standing on the table he could get his head out. No less clearly he saw how easy it would be for a mutineer to hit it.
Huddled up in a corner of the cabin he tried to think. Tredgold and Stobell were strangely silent, and even the voice of Brisket had ceased. The suspense became unbearable. Then suddenly a faint creaking and straining of timbers apprised him of the fact that the Fair Emily was under way.
He sprang to his feet and beat heavily upon the door, but it was of stout wood and opened inwards. Then a bright idea, the result of reading sensational fiction, occurred to him, and raising his rifle to his shoulder he aimed at the lock and pulled the trigger.
The noise of the explosion in the small cabin was deafening, but, loud as it was, it failed to drown a cry of alarm outside. The sound of heavy feet and of two or three bodies struggling for precedence up the companion-ladder followed, and Mr. Chalk, still holding his smoking rifle and regarding a splintered hole in the centre of the panel, wondered whether he had hit anybody. He slipped in a fresh cartridge and, becoming conscious of a partial darkening of the skylight, aimed hastily at a face which appeared there. The face, which bore a strong resemblance to that of Mr. Stobell, disappeared with great suddenness.
"He's gone clean off his head," said Captain Brisket, as Mr. Stobell staggered back.
"Mad as a March hare," said Mr. Tredgold, shivering; "it's a wonder he didn't have one of us just now. Call down to him that it's all right, Stobell."
"Call yourself," said that gentleman, shortly.
"Get a stick and raise the skylight," said Tredgold.
A loud report sounded from below. Mr. Chalk had fired a second and successful shot at the lock. "What's he doing?" inquired Stobell, blankly.
A sharp exclamation from Captain Brisket was the only reply, and he turned just as Mr. Chalk, with a rifle in one hand and a revolver in the other, appeared on deck. The captain's cry was echoed forward, and three of the crew dived with marvellous skill into the forecastle. The boy and two others dashed into the galley so hurriedly that the cook, who was peeping out, was borne backwards on to the stove and kept there, the things he said in the heat of the moment being attributed to excitement and attracting no attention. Tredgold, Brisket, and Stobell dodged behind the galley, and Mr. Chalk was left to gaze in open-mouthed wonder at the shrinking figure of Mr. Duckett at the wheel. They regarded each other in silence, until a stealthy step behind Mr. Chalk made him turn round smartly. Mr. Stobell, who was stealing up to secure him, dodged hastily behind the mainmast.
"Stobell!" cried Mr. Chalk, faintly.
"It's all right," said the other.
Mr. Chalk regarded his proceedings in amazement. "What are you hiding behind the mast for?" he inquired, stepping towards him.
Mr. Stobell made no reply, but with an agility hardly to be expected of one of his bulk dashed behind the galley again.
A sense of mystery and unreality stole over Mr. Chalk. He began to think that he must be dreaming. He turned and looked at Mr. Duckett, and Mr. Duckett, trying to smile at him, contorted his face so horribly that he shrank back appalled. He looked about him and saw that they were now in open water and drawing gradually away from the land. The stillness and mystery became unbearable, and with an air of resolution he cocked his rifle and proceeded with infinite caution to stalk the galley. As he weathered it, with his finger on the trigger, Stobell and the others stole round the other side and, making a mad break aft, stumbled down the companion-ladder and secured themselves below.