XXVI
THE ADVENTURE OF THE PARCEL
"A man! Haul him in! Don't leave a poor fellow drifting about likethat."
The speaker, a bluff, hearty skipper, whose sturdy craft had outriddenone of the worst storms of the season, pointed to our poor friendSweetwater, whose head could just be seen above the broken spar he clungto. In another moment a half-dozen hands were stretched for him, and theinsensible form was drawn in and laid on a deck which still showed theresults of the night's fierce conflict with the waters.
"Damn it! how ugly he is!" cried one of the sailors, with a leer at thehalf-drowned man's face. "I'd like to see the lass we'd please in savinghim. He's only fit to poison a devil-fish!"
But though more than one laugh rang out, they gave him good care, andwhen Sweetwater came to life and realised that his blood was pulsingwarmly again through his veins, and that a grey sky had taken the placeof darkness, and a sound board supported limbs which for hours hadyielded helplessly to the rocking billows, he saw a ring of hard butgood-natured faces about him and realised quite well what had been donefor him when one of them said:
"There! he'll do now; all hands on deck! We can get into New Bedford intwo days if this wind holds. Nor' west!" shouted the skipper to the manat the tiller. "We'll sup with our old women in forty-eight hours!"
New Bedford! It was the only word Sweetwater heard. So, he was nofarther away from Sutherlandtown than that. Evidently Providence had notmeant him to escape. Or was it his fortitude that was being tried? A manas humble as he might easily be lost even in a place as small as NewBedford. It was his identity he must suppress. With that unrecognised hemight remain in the next village to Sutherlandtown without fear of beingcalled up as a witness against Frederick. But could he suppress it? Hethought he could. At all events he meant to try.
"What's your name?" were the words he now heard shouted in his ear.
"Jonathan Briggs," was his mumbled reply. "I was blown off a ship's deckin the gale last night."
"What ship?"
"The Proserpine." It was the first name that suggested itself to him.
"Oh, I thought it might have been the Hesper; she foundered off herelast night."
"Foundered? The Hesper?" The hot blood was shooting now through hisveins.
"Yes, we just picked up her name-board. That was before we got a hold onyou."
Foundered! The ship from which he had been so mercilessly thrown! Andall on board lost, perhaps. He began to realise the hand of Providencein his fate.
"It was the Hesper I sailed on. I'm not just clear yet in my head. Myfirst voyage was made on the Proserpine. Well, bless the gale that blewme from that deck!"
He seemed incoherent, and they left him again for a little while. Whenthey came back he had his story all ready, which imposed upon them justso far as it was for their interest. Their business on this coast wasnot precisely legitimate, and when they found he simply wanted to be seton shore, they were quite willing to do thus much for him. Only theyregretted that he had barely two dollars and his own soaked clothing togive in exchange for the motley garments they trumped up among them forhis present comfort. But he, as well as they, made the best of a badbargain, he especially, as his clothes, which would be soon scatteredamong half a dozen families, were the only remaining clew connecting himwith his native town. He could now be Jonathan Briggs indeed. Only whowas Jonathan Briggs, and how was he to earn a living under theseunexpected conditions?
At the end of a couple of days he was dexterously landed on the end of along pier, which they passed without stopping, on their way to their ownobscure anchorage. As he jumped from the rail to the pier and felt againthe touch of terra firma he drew a long breath of uncontrollableelation. Yet he had not a cent in the world, no friends, and certainlyno prospects. He did not even know whether to turn to the right or theleft as he stepped out upon the docks, and when he had decided to turnto the right as being on the whole more lucky, he did not know whetherto risk his fortune in the streets of the town or to plunge into one ofthe low-browed drinking houses whose signs confronted him on thiswater-lane.
He decided that his prospects for a dinner were slim in any case, andthat his only hope of breaking fast that day lay in the use he mightmake of one of his three talents. Either he must find a fiddle to playon, a carpenter's bench to work at, or a piece of detective shadowing todo. The last would bring him before the notice of the police, which wasjust the thing he must avoid; so it was fiddling or carpentry he mustseek, either of which would be difficult to obtain in his present garb.But of difficulties Sweetwater was not a man to take note. He hadundertaken out of pure love for a good man to lose himself. He hadaccomplished this, and now was he to complain because in doing so he waslikely to go hungry for a day or two? No; Amabel might laugh at him, orhe might fancy she did, while struggling in the midst of rapidlyengulfing waters, but would she laugh at him now? He did not think shewould. She was of the kind who sometimes go hungry themselves in oldage. Some premonition of this might give her a fellow feeling.
He came to a stand before a little child sitting on an ill-keptdoorstep. Smiling at her kindly, he waited for her first expression tosee how he appeared in the eyes of innocence. Not so bad a man, itseemed, though his naturally plain countenance was not relieved by theseaman's cap and knitted shirt he wore. For she laughed as she looked athim, and only ran away because there wasn't room for him to pass besideher.
Comforted a little, he sauntered on, glancing here and there with thatsharp eye of his for a piece of work to be done. Suddenly he came to ahalt. A market-woman had got into an altercation with an oysterman, andher stall had been upset in the contention, and her vegetables wererolling here and there. He righted her stall, picked up her vegetables,and in return got two apples and a red herring he would not have givento a dog at home. Yet it was the sweetest morsel he had ever tasted, andthe apples might have been grown in the garden of the Hesperides fromthe satisfaction and pleasure they gave this hungry man. Then,refreshed, he dashed into the town. It should now go hard but he wouldearn a night's lodging.
The day was windy and he was going along a narrow street, when somethingfloated down from a window above past his head. It was a woman's veil,and as he looked up to see where it came from he met the eyes of itsowner looking down from an open casement above him. She wasgesticulating, and seemed to point to someone up the street. Glad toseize at anything which promised emolument or adventure, he shouted upand asked her what she wanted.
"That man down there!" she cried; "the one in a long black coat going upthe street. Keep after him and stop him; tell him the telegram has come.Quick, quick, before he gets around the corner! He will pay you; run!"
Sweetwater, with joy in his heart,--for five cents was a boon to him inthe present condition of his affairs,--rushed after the man she hadpointed out and hastily stopped him.
"Someone," he added, "a woman in a window back there, bade me run afteryou and say the telegram has come. She told me you would pay me," headded, for he saw the man was turning hastily back, without thinking ofthe messenger. "I need the money, and the run was a sharp one."
With a preoccupied air, the man thrust his hand into his pocket, pulledout a coin, and handed it to him. Then he walked hurriedly off.Evidently the news was welcome to him. But Sweetwater stood rooted tothe ground. The man had given him a five-dollar gold piece instead ofthe nickel he had evidently intended.
How hungrily Sweetwater eyed that coin! In it was lodging, food, perhapsa new article or so of clothing. But after a moment of indecision whichmight well be forgiven him, he followed speedily after the man andovertook him just as he reached the house from which the woman's veilhad floated.
"Sir, pardon me; but you gave me five dollars instead of five cents. Itwas a mistake; I cannot keep the money."
The man, who was not just the sort from whom kindness would be expected,looked at the money in Sweetwater's palm, then at the miserable,mud-bespattered clothes he wore (he had got that mud helping the
poormarket-woman), and stared hard at the face of the man who looked soneedy and yet returned him five dollars.
"You're an honest fellow," he declared, not offering to take back thegold piece. Then, with a quick glance up at the window, "Would you liketo earn that money?"
Sweetwater broke out into a smile, which changed his whole countenance.
"Wouldn't I, sir?"
The man eyed him for another minute with scrutinising intensity. Then hesaid shortly:
"Come up-stairs with me."
They entered the house, went up a flight or two, and stopped at a doorwhich was slightly ajar.
"We are going into the presence of a lady," remarked the man. "Wait hereuntil I call you."
Sweetwater waited, the many thoughts going through his mind notpreventing him from observing all that passed.
The man, who had left the door wide open, approached the lady who wasawaiting him, and who was apparently the same one who had sentSweetwater on his errand, and entered into a low but animatedconversation. She held a telegram in her hand which she showed him, andthen after a little earnest parley and a number of pleading looks fromthem both toward the waiting Sweetwater, she disappeared into anotherroom, from which she brought a parcel neatly done up, which she handedto the man with a strange gesture. Another hurried exchange of words anda meaning look which did not escape the sharp eye of the watchfulmessenger, and the man turned and gave the parcel into Sweetwater'shands.
"You are to carry this," said he, "to the town hall. In the second roomto the right on entering you will see a table surrounded by chairs,which at this hour ought to be empty. At the head of the table you willfind an arm-chair. On the table directly in front of this you will laythis packet. Mark you, directly before the chair and not too far fromthe edge of the table. Then you are to come out. If you see anyone, sayyou came to leave some papers for Mr. Gifford. Do this and you may keepthe five dollars and welcome."
Sweetwater hesitated. There was something in the errand or in the mannerof the man and woman that he did not like.
"Don't potter!" spoke up the latter, with an impatient look at herwatch. "Mr. Gifford will expect those papers."
Sweetwater's sensitive fingers closed on the package he held. It did notfeel like papers.
"Are you going?" asked the man.
Sweetwater looked up with a smile. "Large pay for so slight acommission," he ventured, turning the packet over and over in his hand.
"But then you will execute it at once, and according to the instructionsI have given you," retorted the man. "It is your trustworthiness I payfor. Now go."
Sweetwater turned to go. After all it was probably all right, and fivedollars easily earned is doubly five dollars. As he reached thestaircase he stumbled. The shoes he wore did not fit him.
"Be careful, there!" shouted the woman, in a shrill, almost frightenedvoice, while the man stumbled back into the room in a haste which seemedwholly uncalled for. "If you let the packet fall you will do injury toits contents. Go softly, man, go softly!"
Yet they had said it held papers!
Troubled, yet hardly knowing what his duty was, Sweetwater hastened downthe stairs, and took his way up the street. The town hall should be easyto find; indeed, he thought he saw it in the distance. As he went, heasked himself two questions: Could he fail to deliver the packageaccording to instructions, and yet earn his money? And was there any wayof so delivering it without risk to the recipient or dereliction of dutyto the man who had intrusted it to him and whose money he wished toearn? To the first question his conscience at once answered no; to thesecond the reply came more slowly, and before fixing his minddeterminedly upon it he asked himself why he felt that this was noordinary commission. He could answer readily enough. First, the pay wastoo large, arguing that either the packet or the placing of the packetin a certain position on Mr. Gifford's table was of uncommon importanceto this man or this woman. Secondly, the woman, though plainly andinconspicuously clad, had the face of a more than ordinarilyunscrupulous adventuress, while her companion was one of thosesaturnine-faced men we sometimes meet, whose first look puts us on ourguard and whom, if we hope nothing from him, we instinctively shun.Third, they did not look like inhabitants of the house and rooms inwhich he found them. Nothing beyond the necessary articles of furniturewas to be seen there; not a trunk, not an article of clothing, nor anyof the little things that mark a woman's presence in a spot where sheexpects to spend a day or even an hour. Consequently they weretransients and perhaps already in the act of flight. Then he was beingfollowed. Of this he felt sure. He had followed people himself, andsomething in his own sensations assured him that his movements wereunder surveillance. It would, therefore, not do to show anyconsciousness of this, and he went on directly and as straight to hisgoal as his rather limited knowledge of the streets would allow. He wasdetermined to earn this money and to earn it without disadvantage toanyone. And he thought he saw his way.
At the entrance of the town hall he hesitated an instant. An officer wasstanding in the doorway, it would be easy to call his attention to thepacket he held and ask him to keep his eye on it. But this might involvehim with the police, and this was something, as we know, which he wasmore than anxious to avoid. He reverted to his first idea.
Mixing with the crowd just now hurrying to and fro through the longcorridors, he reached the room designated and found it, as he had beenwarned he should, empty.
Approaching the table, he laid down the packet just as he had beendirected, in front of the big arm chair, and then, casting a hurriedlook towards the door and failing to find anyone watching him, he tookup a pencil lying near-by and scrawled hastily across the top of thepacket the word "Suspicious." This he calculated would act as a warningto Mr. Gifford in case there was anything wrong about the package, andpass as a joke with him, and even the sender, if there was not. Andsatisfied that he had both earned his money and done justice to his ownapprehensions, he turned to retrace his steps. As before, the corridorswere alive with hurrying men of various ages and appearance, but onlytwo attracted his notice. One of these was a large, intellectual-lookingman, who turned into the room from which he had just emerged, and theother a short, fair man, with a countenance he had known from boyhood.Mr. Stone of Sutherlandtown was within ten paces of him, and he was aswell known to the good postmaster as the postmaster was to him. Couldanyone have foreseen such a chance!
Turning his back with a slow slouch, he made for a rear door he sawswinging in and out before him. As he passed through he cast a quicklook behind him. He had not been recognised. In great relief he rushedon, knocking against a man standing against one of the outside pillars.
"Halloo!" shouted this man.
Sweetwater stopped. There was a tone of authority in the voice which hecould not resist.