The Trader's Wife, George Lewis Becke [top rated books of all time TXT] 📗

silence, and the two men remained conversing in almost whispered tones for some time.

"Tell me," asked the Chileno, fixing his dark eyes on the captain's face; "when did you first begin to suspect?"

"From the very first day that I saw her and Danvers together. He betrayed himself--fool that he is--by being too formally polite to her, before me."

"And then you read this letter of his to her. How did you get hold of it?"

"I was coming back from my bathe in Totoga Creek about six in the morning. Went into Manton's for a few minutes' rest and a smoke. Danvers's door was open, and though he was not in the room, I could hear his voice talking to Manton. I stepped inside to sit down and wait for him. He had been writing a letter, which was but half finished. It was to my wife, and began, 'My darling Helen.'"

"Ah-h-h!" said Diaz, in a savage, hissing whisper.

"I left it there, strolled out into the dining-room where Manton and Danvers were having their morning coffee. I joined them, and chatted with them for half an hour. Then I went home, and told Minea what to do when the letter came. It was delivered by Danvers's native servant. Minea met him at the garden gate. He asked if I was in. She said I was out; he gave her the letter, and told her to give it to her mistress, who was still in bed. The girl brought it to me to where I was waiting. I opened it, took a copy of it, and gave it back to her to give to her mistress."

He paused, and then smiled grimly at the Chileno. Then he smoked on in silence.

"You will kill them both?" asked Diaz.

"I don't think so, Pedro. I must wait. And you will stand to me?"

The officer's hand met his in a steady grip.

"That is all for the present, Pedro. She--and he, too--thinks that the _Loelia_ will not be back in Levuka for three months. But we shall be here in less than a month. And if I find that Danvers has gone to Sydney in the monthly steamer, then I shall know how to act," and he tapped the copy of the letter that was in his breast pocket.

Then Pedro told him the real cause of the quarrel between Dr. Bruce and Danvers. Brabant heard him with an unmoved face. "I thought as much," he said briefly.

A few days later, the _Loelia_, instead of laying northwards for the Line Islands, was at anchor in Apia Harbour in Samoa, and Brabant, leaving the vessel in charge of his mate, paid a round of visits to several of his old friends in various parts of the island. At the end of three weeks he returned on board as calm as usual, and told Diaz to heave up anchor. By sunset that evening the _Loelia_ was sailing between the islands of Savaii and Manono, and heading due west for Fiji before the strong south-east trade wind. Just four weeks from the date of her departure she re-entered Levuka harbour, and the first news that Brabant heard was that the _Eagle_, the monthly steamer to Sydney, had sailed a few days previously, and that among her passengers was Captain Danvers, who had "been called to Melbourne on matters connected with his business," but would be returning in a couple of months. He had left a letter for Brabant, in which, after speaking of company matters, he said: "I do hope I shall have the pleasure of seeing Mrs. Brabant in Sydney before she leaves. I daresay I can get her address from your agents there." As he was reading his letters Bruce came on board.

"You are back sooner than you thought, Brabant."

"Yes. When I got to Samoa I met a German brig bound to the line Islands, and arranged with her captain to see all my traders for me, as the _Loelia_ is as leaky as a basket. I'm going to give her a good overhaul here."

There were of course the usual sneering comments made by the local female gossips on Captain Danvers's sudden departure for Sydney, so soon after Mrs. Brabant had left in the _Maritana_. If Brabant knew of them he took no heed. He went about his work as usual, met his friends, and attended to the _Loelia's_ repairs in his methodical manner.

Eight weeks passed by, and then the _Eagle_, a slow-crawling old ex-collier, which did duty as a mail and passenger steamer, entered the port, and Danvers, jauntier and handsomer than ever, stepped ashore and took up his old quarters at Manton's Hotel. Here he soon learnt the reason of Brabant's early return, and in less than an hour he was up at the bungalow, and seated opposite Nell Brabant's husband, whom he had found reading his letters.

"I met Mrs. Brabant quite a number of times," he said effusively; "she was looking very well, but I think was getting tired of Sydney when I last saw her. Said that she thought that Fiji after all was the best place, you know."

Brabant nodded. "Just so. Well, we'll see her before another couple of months, I hope."

"I hope so," said Danvers genially, as he raised his glass of brandy-and-soda and nodded "good luck" to his host.

"I was thinking, Danvers," said Brabant, as he laid down unopened the rest of his letters, "that it would be just as well if you came round with me in the _Loelia_ and saw my stations in the New Hebrides. It would facilitate matters a good deal, and the cutter is all ready for sea. In anticipation of your coming I have fitted up your quarters on board."

"Delighted, my dear fellow. When do you propose sailing?"

"As soon as ever you like."

"To-morrow, then. I'm anxious to get this matter pulled through. As you will see by your letters from my people, they are prepared to pay ten thousand down at once, and fifteen thousand in three bills, at one, two, and three years."

"That is all right. Shall you be ready tomorrow, then?"

"Quite."

After Danvers had gone to his hotel Brabant went on board the _Loelia_, and he and Pedro Diaz again talked together.

*****


At nine o'clock next morning the cutter Loelia weighed anchor, and made sail for "a cruise among the New Hebrides. With Captain Brabant" (so said the tiny weekly newspaper published in Levuka) "was Captain Harold Danvers, who is making a tour of inspection of the captain's properties before taking possession of them on behalf of the new Trading Company."

*****


Forty-eight hours after leaving Levuka the cutter was clear of the land, and leaping and spinning before the trade wind which was blowing lustily. Danvers, as he sat in a deck-chair smoking a cigar, took a lazy interest in the crew, who were all natives of the Line Islands--short, square-built, half-naked savages, with jet-black hair and huge pendulous ear-lobes filled with coiled-up leaves. There were but eight of them--the _Loelia_ was a vessel of ninety tons--and Diaz was the only white man on board except Brabant and Danvers.

It was four o'clock in the afternoon. A native seaman struck eight bells and Brabant came on deck. Pedro was standing aft beside the helmsman.

"We're going along at a jolly good pace, are we not----" began Danvers. Then his voice failed him suddenly, and his face turned white as he saw that Brabant was looking at him with the deadliest hatred in his eyes.

"What is the matter with you, Brabant? Why do you----"

Brabant raised his hand, and Pedro came and stood beside him, and then two of the wild-looking crew suddenly sprang upon Danvers, seized him by the arms, and handcuffed him.

"Away with him below," said Brabant, turning on his heel and walking aft.

Too utterly astounded to offer any resistance, Danvers was hurried along the deck to the main hatch and made to descend. The hold was empty, but an armed native was there awaiting the prisoner.

Diaz followed him below.

"You are to make no noise, nor speak to the sentry," he said, with a sullen savageness; "if you do I shall put on the hatches."

Danvers was no coward, but his heart sank within him. "Is this a joke, or has Captain Brabant gone mad?"

The Chileno looked at him with blazing eyes, and half raised his hand as if to strike. Then, without a word, he turned away and went on deck.

Brabant was seated on the skylight with an outspread chart before him.

"Keep her S.S.W., Pedro. We are steering for Hunter's Island. Set the squaresail."

*****


For five days the _Loelia_ steered steadily before the trade wind, till one morning there lay before her a huge, treeless cone, whose barren, rugged sides rose blackly from the sea.

Not a vestige of vegetation was visible anywhere from the cutter, and from the summit of the cone, and from long, gaping fissures in the sides, ascended thin, wavering clouds of dull, sulphurous smoke. Here and there were small bays, whose shores showed narrow beaches of black sand, upon which the surf thundered and clamoured unceasingly. Not even a wandering sea-bird was to be seen, and the only sound that disturbed the dread silence of the place was the roar of the breakers mingling with the muffled groanings and heavings of the still struggling and mighty forces of Nature in the heart of the island--forces which, ninety-five years before, had found a vent and destroyed every living thing, man and beast, in one dreadful outburst of flame, whose awful reflection was seen a hundred leagues away.

It was a place of horror and desolation, set in a lonely sea, appalling in appearance to the human eye.

But at one point on the western side, as the _Loelia_ crept in under the lee, there opened out a small bay less than fifty fathoms in width from head to head, where, instead of the roaring surf which beat so fiercely against the rest of the island, as if it sought to burst in its rocky walls and extinguish for ever the raging fires hidden deep down in its heart, there was but a gentle swell which broke softly upon a beach less dismal to the eye than the others. For instead of the black volcanic sand the shore was strewn with rough boulders of rock, whose sides were covered in places with a thick, green creeper. Above, the sides of the mountain showed here and there a scanty foliage, low, stunted, and dull tinted; and in the centre of the beach a tiny stream of fresh water trickled through sand and rock and mingled itself with the sea.

Abreast of this spot the cutter's jib-sheet was hauled to windward. Then the boat was lowered and filled with provisions in cases and casks, and Diaz, with four hands, went ashore and carried everything up beyond high water-mark. Brabant watched them unconcernedly from the ship.

The boat returned and Diaz came on deck, and looked at the captain expectantly. Brabant made a gesture towards the main hatch, then stepped forward. Diaz, with two seamen, descended the hold. In two minutes they reappeared with Danvers, who, the moment he came on deck, looked wildly about him.

"For God's sake, listen to me!" he said hoarsely to the Chileno. "Are you, too, and these men, as mad as your captain, or am I mad myself? Where is he? Let me see him. What are