Part 2 (1/2)
”Go on,” he said to Sir Joseph, when he had got to the end of his excuses; ”I never heard such an interesting story in my life. Pray go on!”
The request was not an easy one to comply with. Sir Joseph's ideas had been thrown into confusion. Miss Lavinia's contradictions (held in reserve) had been scattered beyond recall. Both brother and sister were, moreover, additionally hindered in recovering the control of their own resources by the look and manner of their host. He alarmed, instead of encouraging the two harmless old people, by fronting them almost fiercely, with his elbows squared on the table, and his face expressive of a dogged resolution to sit there and listen, if need be, for the rest of his life. Launce was the person who set Sir Joseph going again. After first looking attentively at Richard, he took his uncle straight back to the story by means of a question, thus:
”You don't mean to say that the captain of the s.h.i.+p threw the man overboard?”
”That is just what he did, Launce. The poor wretch was too ill to work his pa.s.sage. The captain declared he would have no idle foreign vagabond in his s.h.i.+p to eat up the provisions of Englishmen who worked. With his own hands he cast the hen-coop into the water, and (a.s.sisted by one of his sailors) he threw the man after it, and told him to float back to Liverpool with the evening tide.”
”A lie!” cried Turlington, addressing himself, not to Sir Joseph, but to Launce.
”Are you acquainted with the circ.u.mstances?” asked Launce, quietly.
”I know nothing about the circ.u.mstances. I say, from my own experience, that foreign sailors are even greater blackguards than English sailors.
The man had met with an accident, no doubt. The rest of his story was a lie, and the object of it was to open Sir Joseph's purse.”
Sir Joseph mildly shook his head.
”No lie, Richard. Witnesses proved that the man had spoken the truth.”
”Witnesses? Pooh! More liars, you mean.”
”I went to the owners of the vessel,” pursued Sir Joseph. ”I got from them the names of the officers and the crew, and I waited, leaving the case in the hands of the Liverpool police. The s.h.i.+p was wrecked at the mouth of the Amazon, but the crew and the cargo were saved. The men belonging to Liverpool came back. They were a bad set, I grant you. But they were examined separately about the treatment of the foreign sailor, and they all told the same story. They could give no account of their captain, nor of the sailor who had been his accomplice in the crime, except that they had not embarked in the s.h.i.+p which brought the rest of the crew to England. Whatever may have become of the captain since, he certainly never returned to Liverpool.”
”Did you find out his name?”
The question was asked by Turlington. Even Sir Joseph, the least observant of men, noticed that it was put with a perfectly unaccountable irritability of manner.
”Don't be angry, Richard.” said the old gentleman. ”What is there to be angry about?”
”I don't know what you mean. I'm not angry--I'm only curious. _Did_ you find out who he was?”
”I did. His name was Goward. He was well known at Liverpool as a very clever and a very dangerous man. Quite young at the time I am speaking of, and a first-rate sailor; famous for taking command of unseaworthy s.h.i.+ps and vagabond crews. Report described him to me as having made considerable sums of money in that way, for a man in his position; serving firms, you know, with a bad name, and running all sorts of desperate risks. A sad ruffian, Richard! More than once in trouble, on both sides of the Atlantic, for acts of violence and cruelty. Dead, I dare say, long since.”
”Or possibly,” said Launce, ”alive, under another name, and thriving in a new way of life, with more desperate risks in it, of some other sort.”
”Are _you_ acquainted with the circ.u.mstances?” asked Turlington, retorting Launce's question on him, with a harsh ring of defiance in his bra.s.sy voice.
”What became of the poor foreign sailor, papa?” said Natalie, purposely interrupting Launce before he could meet the question angrily asked of him, by an angry reply.
”We made a subscription, and spoke to his consul, my dear. He went back to his country, poor fellow, comfortably enough.”
”And there is an end of Sir Joseph's story,” said Turlington, rising noisily from his chair. ”It's a pity we haven't got a literary man on board--he would make a novel of it.” He looked up at the skylight as he got on his feet. ”Here is the breeze, this time,” he exclaimed, ”and no mistake!”
It was true. At last the breeze had come. The sails flapped, the main boom swung over with a thump, and the stagnant water, stirred at last, bubbled merrily past the vessel's sides.
”Come on deck, Natalie, and get some fresh air,” said Miss Lavinia, leading the way to the cabin door.
Natalie held up the skirt of her nankeen dress, and exhibited the purple tr.i.m.m.i.n.g torn away over an extent of some yards.
”Give me half an hour first, aunt, in my cabin,” she said, ”to mend this.”