XXIV
IN THE SHADOW OP THE MAST
Mr. Sutherland was right. Sweetwater did not return with the pilot.According to the latter there was no Sweetwater on board the ship toreturn. At all events the minutest search had not succeeded in findinghim in the cabins, though no one had seen him leave the vessel, or,indeed, seen him at all after his hasty dash below decks. It was thoughton board that he had succeeded in reaching shore before the ship setsail, and the pilot was suitably surprised at learning this was not so.So were Sweetwater's friends and associates with the exception of acertain old gentleman living on the hill, and Knapp the detective. He,that is the latter, had his explanation at his tongue's end:
"Sweetwater is a fakir. He thought he could carry off the honours fromthe regular force, and when he found he couldn't he quietly disappeared.We shall hear of him again in the Brazils."
An opinion that speedily gained ground, so that in a few hoursSweetwater was all but forgotten, save by his mother, whose heart wasfilled with suspense, and by Mr. Sutherland, whose breast was burdenedby gratitude. The amazing fact of Frederick, the village scapegrace andAmabel's reckless, if aristocratic, lover, having been made the legateeof the upright Mrs. Webb's secret savings had something to do with this.With such a topic at hand, not only the gossips, but those who had thematter of Agatha's murder in hand, found ample material to occupy theirthoughts and tongues, without wasting time over a presumptuous busybody,who had not wits enough to know that five minutes before sailing-time isan unfortunate moment in which to enter a ship.
And where was Sweetwater, that he could not be found on the shore or onthe ship? We will follow him and see. Accustomed from his youth toramble over the vessels while in port, he knew this one as well as hedid his mother's house. It was, therefore, a surprise to the sailorswhen, shortly after the departure of the pilot, they came upon him lyingin the hold, half buried under a box which had partially fallen uponhim. He was unconscious, or appeared to be so, and when brought intoopen light showed marks of physical distress and injury; but his eye wasclear and his expression hardly as rueful as one would expect in a manwho finds himself en route for the Brazils with barely a couple ofdollars in his pocket and every prospect of being obliged to work beforethe mast to earn his passage. Even the captain noticed this and eyed himwith suspicion. But Sweetwater, rousing to the necessities of theoccasion, forthwith showed such a mixture of discouragement andperplexity that the honest sailor was deceived and abated half at leastof his oaths. He gave Sweetwater a hammock and admitted him to the mess,but told him that as soon as his bruises allowed him to work he shouldshow himself on deck or expect the rough treatment commonly bestowed onstowaways.
It was a prospect to daunt some men, but not Sweetwater. Indeed it wasno more than he had calculated upon when he left his savings behind withhis old mother and entered upon this enterprise with only a littlechange in his pocket. He had undertaken out of love and gratitude to Mr.Sutherland to rid Frederick of a dangerous witness and he felt able tocomplete the sacrifice. More than that, he was even strangely happy fora time. The elation of the willing victim was his, that is for a fewshort hours, then he began to think of his mother. How had she borne hissudden departure? What would she think had befallen him, and how longwould he have to wait before he could send her word of his safety? If hewas to be of real service to the man he venerated, he must be lost longenough for the public mind to have become settled in regard to themysteries of the Webb murder and for his own boastful connection with itto be forgotten. This might mean years of exile. He rather thought itdid; meanwhile his mother! Of himself he thought little.
By sundown he felt himself sufficiently recovered from his bruises to goup on deck. It was a mild night, and the sea was running in smooth longwaves that as yet but faintly presaged the storm brewing on the distanthorizon. As he inhaled the fresh air, the joy of renewed health began toinfuse its life into his veins and lift the oppression from his heart,and, glad of a few minutes of quiet enjoyment, he withdrew to a solitaryportion of the deck and allowed himself to forget his troubles incontemplation of the rapidly deepening sky and boundless stretch ofwaters.
But such griefs and anxieties as weighed upon this man's breast are notso easily shaken off. Before he realised it his thoughts had recurred tothe old theme, and he was wondering if he was really of sufficientinsignificance in the eyes of his fellow-townsmen not to be sought forand found in that distant country to which he was bound. Would they, inspite of his precautions, suspect that he had planned this evasion andinsist on his return, or would he be allowed to slip away and drop outof sight like the white froth he was watching on the top of theever-shifting waves? He had boasted of possessing a witness. Would theybelieve that boast and send a detective in search of him, or would theytake his words for the bombast they really were and proceed with theirinvestigations in happy relief at the loss of his intrusive assistance?
As this was a question impossible for him to answer, he turned to otherthoughts and fretted himself for a while with memories of Amabel'sdisdain and Frederick's careless acceptance of a sacrifice he couldnever know the cost of, mixed strangely with relief at being free of itall and on the verge of another life. As the dark settled, his head fellfarther and farther forward on the rail he was leaning against, till hebecame to any passing eye but a blurred shadow mixing with other shadowsequally immovable.
Unlike them, however, his shadow suddenly shifted. Two men had drawnnear him, one speaking pure Spanish and the other English. The Englishwas all that Sweetwater could understand, and this half of theconversation was certainly startling enough. Though he could not, ofcoarse, know to what or whom it referred, and though it certainly hadnothing to do with him, or any interest he represented or understood, hecould not help listening and remembering every word. TheEnglish-speaking man uttered the first sentence he comprehended. It wasthis:
"Shall it be to-night?"
The answer was in Spanish.
Again the English voice:
"He has come up. I saw him distinctly as he passed the second mast."
More Spanish; then English:
"You may if you want to, but I'll never breathe easy while he's on theship. Are you sure he's the fellow we fear?"
A rapid flow of words from which Sweetwater got nothing. Then slowly anddistinctly in the sinister tones he had already begun to shiver at:
"Very good. The R. F. A. should pay well for this," with the quickaddition following a hurried whisper: "All right! I'd send a dozen mento the bottom for half that money. But 'ware there! Here's a fellowwatching us! If he has heard--"
Sweetwater turned, saw two desperate faces projected toward him,realised that something awful, unheard of, was about to happen, andwould have uttered a yell of dismay, but that the very intensity of hisfright took away his breath. The next minute he felt himself launchedinto space and enveloped in the darkness of the chilling waters. He hadbeen lifted bodily and flung headlong into the sea.