A Bid for Fortune, Guy Boothby [top 10 novels .txt] 📗

there is no time to lose, so with your permission I'll get to work at once."

"Order all the coal you want, and tell the steward to do the same for anything he may require in his department. The bills must be sent in to me."

"Very good, Mr. Wetherell. And what time will you be ready?"

"As soon as you are. Can you get away by three o'clock this afternoon, think you?"

"Well, it will be a bit of a scramble, but I think we can manage it. Anyhow, I'll do my best, you may be sure of that, sir."

"I'm sure you will. There is grave need for it. Now we'll go back and arrange a few matters ashore. My man shall bring our baggage down later on."

"Very good, sir. I'll have your berths prepared."

With that we descended to the boat again, and were pulled ashore. Arriving there, Mr. Wetherell asked what we should do first.

"Hadn't we better go up to the town and purchase a few rifles and some ammunition?" I said. "We can have them sent down direct to the boat."

"A very good suggestion. Let us go at once."

We accordingly set off for George Street--to a shop I remembered having seen. There we purchased half a dozen Winchester repeaters, with a good supply of ammunition. They were to be sent down to the yacht without fail that morning. This done, we stood on the pavement debating what we should do next. Finally it was decided that Mr. Wetherell and Beckenham should go home to pack, while I made one or two other small purchases, and then join them. Accordingly, bidding them good-bye, I went on down the street, completed my business, and was about to hail a cab and follow them, when a thought struck me: Why should I not visit Messrs. Dawson & Gladman, and find out why they were advertising for me? This I determined to do, and accordingly set off for Castlereagh Street.

In a small room leading off the main passage, three clerks were seated. To them I addressed myself, asking if I might see the partners.

"Mr. Dawson is the only one in town, sir," said the boy to whom I spoke. "If you'll give me your name, I'll take it in to him."

"My name is Hatteras," I said. "Mr. Richard Hatteras."

In less than two minutes the clerk returned, and begged me to follow him, which I did. At the end of a long passage we passed through a curtained doorway, and I stood in the presence of the chief partner.

"I have great pleasure in making your acquaintance, Mr. Hatteras," he said, as I came to an anchor in a chair. "You noticed our advertisement, I presume?"

"I saw it this morning," I answered. "And it is on that account I am here."

"One moment before we proceed any further. Forgive what I am about to say--but you will see yourself that it is a point I am compelled not to neglect. Can you convince me as to your identity?"

"Very easily," I replied, diving my hand into my breast-pocket and taking out some papers. "First and foremost, here is my bank-book. Here is my card-case. And here are two or three letters addressed to me by London and Sydney firms. The Hon. Sylvester Wetherell, Colonial Secretary, will be glad, I'm sure, to vouch for me. Is that sufficient to convince you?"

"More than sufficient," he answered, smiling. "Now let me tell you for what purpose we desired you to call upon us." Here he opened a drawer and took out a letter. "First and foremost, you must understand that we are the Sydney agents of Messrs, Atwin, Dobbs & Forsyth, of Furnival's Inn, London. From them, by the last English mail, we received this letter. I gather that you are the son of James Dymoke Hatteras, who was drowned at sea in the year 1880?"

"I am."

"Your father was the third son of Sir Edward Hatteras of Murdlestone, in the county of Hampshire?"

"He was."

"And the brother of Sir William, who had one daughter, Gwendoline Mary?"

"That is so."

"Well, Mr. Hatteras, it is my sad duty to inform you that within a week of your departure from England your cousin, the young lady just referred to, was drowned by accident in a pond near her home, and that her father, who had been ailing for some few days, died of heart disease on hearing the sad tidings. In that case, so my correspondents inform me, there being no nearer issue, you succeed to the title and estates--which I also learn are of considerable value, including the house and park, ten farms, and a large amount of house property, a rent roll of fifteen thousand a year, and accumulated capital of nearly a hundred thousand pounds."

"Good gracious! Is this really true?"

"Quite true. You can examine the letter for yourself."

I took it up from the table and read it through, hardly able to believe my eyes.

"You are indeed a man to be envied, Mr. Hatteras," said the lawyer. "The title is an old one, and I believe the property is considered one of the best in that part of England."

"It is! But I can hardly believe that it is really mine."

"There is no doubt about that, however. You are a baronet as certainly as I am a lawyer. I presume you would like us to take whatever action is necessary?"

"By all means. This afternoon I am leaving Sydney, for a week or two, for the Islands. I will sign any papers when I come back."

"I will bear that in mind. And your address in Sydney is----"

"Care of the Honourable Sylvester Wetherell, Potts Point."

"Thank you. And, by the way, my correspondents have desired me on their behalf to pay in to your account at the Oceania the sum of five thousand pounds. This I will do to-day."

"I am obliged to you. Now I think I must be going. To tell the truth, I hardly know whether I am standing on my head or my heels."

"Oh, you will soon get over that."

"Good-morning."

"Good-morning, Sir Richard."

With that, I bade him farewell, and went out of the office, feeling quite dazed by my good fortune. I thought of the poor idiot whose end had been so tragic, and of the old man as I had last seen him, shaking his fist at me from the window of the house. And to think that that lovely home was mine, and that I was a baronet, the principal representative of a race as old as any in the country-side! It seemed too wonderful to be true!

Hearty were the congratulations showered upon me at Potts Point, you may be sure, when I told my tale, and my health was drunk at lunch with much goodwill. But our minds were too much taken up with the arrangements for our departure that afternoon to allow us to think very much of anything else. By two o'clock we were ready to leave the house, by half-past we were on board the yacht, at three-fifteen the anchor was up, and a few moments later we were ploughing our way down the harbour.

Our search for Phyllis had reached another stage.


CHAPTER V


THE ISLANDS, AND WHAT WE FOUND THERE

To those who have had no experience of the South Pacific the constantly recurring beauties of our voyage would have seemed like a foretaste of Heaven itself. From Sydney, until the Loyalty Group lay behind us, we had one long spell of exquisite weather. By night under the winking stars, and by day in the warm sunlight, our trim little craft ploughed her way across smooth seas, and our only occupation was to promenade or loaf about the decks and to speculate as to the result of the expedition upon which we had embarked.

Having sighted the Isle of Pines we turned our bows almost due north and headed for the New Hebrides. Every hour our impatience was growing greater. In less than two days, all being well, we should be at our destination, and twenty-four hours after that, if our fortune proved in the ascendant, we ought to be on our way back with Phyllis in our possession once more. And what this would mean to me I can only leave you to guess.

One morning, just as the faint outline of the coast of Aneityum was peering up over the horizon ahead, Wetherell and I chanced to be sitting in the bows. The sea was as smooth as glass, and the tinkling of the water round the little vessel's nose as she turned it off in snowy lines from either bow, was the only sound to be heard. As usual the conversation, after wandering into other topics, came back to the subject nearest our hearts. This led us to make a few remarks anent Nikola and his character. I could not help asking him for an explanation.

"You want to know how it is that I am so frightened of Nikola?" he asked. "Well, to give you my reason will necessitate my telling you a story. I don't mind doing that at all, but what I am afraid of is that you may be inclined to doubt its probability. However, if you want to hear it you shall."

"I should like to above all things," I replied. "I have been longing to ask you about it for some time past, but could not quite screw up my courage."

"Well, in the first place," Mr. Wetherell said, "you must understand that before I became a Minister of the Crown, or indeed a Member of Parliament at all, I was a barrister with a fairly remunerative practice. That was before my wife's death and when Phyllis was at school. Up to the time I am going to tell you about I had taken part in no very sensational case. But my opportunity for earning notoriety was, though I did not know it, near at hand. One day I was briefed to defend a man accused of the murder of a Chinaman aboard a Sydney vessel on a voyage from Shanghai. At first there seemed to be no doubt at all as to his guilt, but by a singular chance, with the details of which I will not bore you, I hit upon a scheme which got him off. I remember the man perfectly, and a queer fellow he was, half-witted, I thought, and at the time of the trial within an ace of dying of consumption. His gratitude was the more pathetic because he had not the wherewithal to pay me. However, he made it up to me in another way.

"One wet night, a couple of months or so after the trial, I was sitting in my drawing-room listening to my wife's music, when a servant entered to tell me that a woman wanted to see me. I went out into the passage to find waiting there a tall buxom lass of about five-and-twenty years of age. She was poorly dressed, but in a great state of excitement.

"'Are you Mr. Wetherell?' she said; 'the gentleman as defended China Pete in the trial the other day?'

"'I am,' I answered. 'What can I do for you? I hope China Pete is not in trouble again?'

"'He's in a worse trouble this time, sir,' said the woman. 'He's dyin', and he sent me to fetch you to 'im before he goes.'