Trent's Trust

A cold tremor passed over Randolph. Captain Dornton, however, was tolerantly smiling.

"I don't understand," said Randolph breathlessly.

Captain Dornton rose and, walking to the door, looked out into the passage; then he shut the door carefully and returned, glancing about the room and at the storm-washed windows. "I thought I heard some one outside. I'm lying low just now, and only go out at night, for I don't want this thing blown before I'm ready. Got anything to drink here?"

Randolph replied by taking a decanter of whiskey and glasses from a cupboard. The captain filled his glass, and continued with the same gentle but exasperating nonchalance, "Mind my smoking?"

"Not at all," said Randolph, pushing a cigar toward him. But the captain put it aside, drew from his pocket a short black clay pipe, stuffed it with black "Cavendish plug," which he had first chipped off in the palm of his hand with a large clasp knife, lighted it, and took a few meditative whiffs. Then, glancing at Randolph's papers, he said, "I'm not keeping you from your work, lad?" and receiving a reply in the negative, puffed at his pipe and once more settled himself comfortably in his chair, with his dark, bearded profile toward Randolph.

"You were saying just now you didn't understand," he went on slowly, without looking up; "so you must take your own bearings from what I'm telling you. When I met you that night I had just arrived from Melbourne. I had been lucky in some trading speculations I had out there, and I had some bills with me, but no money except what I had tucked in the skin of that portmanteau and a few papers connected with my family at home. When a man lives the roving kind of life I have, he learns to keep all that he cares for under his own hat, and isn't apt to blab to friends. But it got out in some way on the voyage that I had money, and as there was a mixed lot of 'Sydney ducks' and 'ticket of leave men' on board, it seems they hatched a nice little plot to waylay me on the wharf on landing, rob me, and drop me into deep water. To make it seem less suspicious, they associated themselves with a lot of crimps who were on the lookout for our sailors, who were going ashore that night too. I'd my suspicions that a couple of those men might be waiting for me at the end of the wharf. I left the ship just a minute or two before the sailors did. Then I met you. That meeting, my lad, was my first step toward salvation. For the two men let you pass with my portmanteau, which they didn't recognize, as I knew they would ME, and supposed you were a stranger, and lay low, waiting for me. I, who went into the gin-mill with the other sailors, was foolish enough to drink, and was drugged and crimped as they were. I hadn't thought of that. A poor devil of a ticket of leave man, about my size, was knocked down for me, and," he added, suppressing a laugh, "will be buried, deeply lamented, in the chancel of Dornton Church. While the row was going on, the skipper, fearing to lose other men, warped out into the stream, and so knew nothing of what happened to me. When they found what they thought was my body, he was willing to identify it in the hope that the crime might be charged to the crimps, and so did the other sailor witnesses. But my brother Bill, who had just arrived here from Callao, where he had been hunting for me, hushed it up to prevent a scandal. All the same, Bill might have known the body wasn't mine, even though he hadn't seen me for years."

"But it was frightfully disfigured, so that even I, who saw you only once, could not have sworn it was NOT you," said Randolph quickly.

"Humph!" said Captain Dornton musingly. "Bill may have acted on the square—though he was in a d——d hurry."

"But," said Randolph eagerly, "you will put an end to all this now. You will assert yourself. You have witnesses to prove your identity."

"Steady, lad," said the captain, waving his pipe gently. "Of course I have. But"—he stopped, laid down his pipe, and put his hands doggedly in his pockets—"IS IT WORTH IT?" Seeing the look of amazement in Randolph's face, he laughed his low laugh, and settled himself back in his chair again. "No," he said quietly, "if it wasn't for my son, and what's due him as my heir, I suppose—I reckon I'd just chuck the whole d——d thing."

"What!" said Randolph. "Give up the property, the title, the family honor, the wrong done to your reputation, the punishment"—He hesitated, fearing he had gone too far.

Captain Dornton withdrew his pipe from his mouth with a gesture of caution, and holding it up, said: "Steady, lad. We'll come to THAT by and by. As to the property and title, I cut and run from THEM ten years ago. To me they meant only the old thing—the life of a country gentleman, the hunting, the shooting, the whole beastly business that the land, over there, hangs like a millstone round your neck. They meant all this to me, who loved adventure and the sea from my cradle. I cut the property, for I hated it, and I hate it still. If I went back I should hear the sea calling me day and night; I should feel the breath of the southwest trades in every wind that blew over that tight little island yonder; I should be always scenting the old trail, lad, the trail that leads straight out of the Gate to swoop down to the South Seas. Do you think a man who has felt his ship's bows heave and plunge under him in the long Pacific swell—just ahead of him a reef breaking white into the lagoon, and beyond a fence of feathery palms—cares to follow hounds over gray hedges under a gray November sky? And the society? A man who's got a speaking acquaintance in every port from Acapulco to Melbourne, who knows every den and every longshoreman in it from a South American tienda to a Samoan beach-comber's hut,—what does he want with society?" He paused as Randolph's eyes were fixed wonderingly on the first sign of emotion on his weather-beaten face, which seemed for a moment to glow with the strength and freshness of the sea, and then said, with a laugh: "You stare, lad. Well, for all the Dorntons are rather proud of their family, like as not there was some beastly old Danish pirate among them long ago, and I've got a taste of his blood in me. But I'm not quite as bad as that yet."

He laughed, and carelessly went on: "As to the family honor, I don't see that it will be helped by my ripping up the whole thing and perhaps showing that Bill was a little too previous in identifying me. As to my reputation, that was gone after I left home, and if I hadn't been the legal heir they wouldn't have bothered their heads about me. My father had given me up long ago, and there isn't a man, woman, or child that wouldn't now welcome Bill in my place."

"There is one who wouldn't," said Randolph impulsively.

"You mean Caroline Avondale?" said Captain Dornton dryly.

Randolph colored. "No; I mean Miss Eversleigh, who was with your brother."

Captain Dornton reflected. "To be sure! Sibyl Eversleigh! I haven't seen her since she was so high. I used to call her my little sweetheart. So Sybby remembered Cousin Jack and came to find him? But when did you meet her?" he asked suddenly, as if this was the only detail of the past which had escaped him, fixing his frank eyes upon Randolph.

The young man recounted at some length the dinner party at Dingwall's, his conversation with Miss Eversleigh, and his interview with Sir William, but spoke little of Miss Avondale. To his surprise, the captain listened smilingly, and only said: "That was like Billy to take a rise out of you by pretending you were suspected. That's his way—a little rough when you don't know him and he's got a little grog amidships. All the same, I'd have given something to have heard him 'running' you, when all the while you had the biggest bulge on him, only neither of you knew it." He laughed again, until Randolph, amazed at his levity and indifference, lost his patience.

"Do you know," he said bluntly, "that they don't believe you were legally married?"

But Captain Dornton only continued to laugh, until, seeing his companion's horrified face, he became demure. "I suppose Bill didn't, for Bill had sense enough to know that otherwise he would have to take a back seat to Bobby."

"But did Miss Avondale know you were legally married, and that your son was the heir?" asked Randolph bluntly.

"She had no reason to suspect otherwise, although we were married secretly. She was an old friend of my wife, not particularly of mine."

Randolph sat back amazed and horrified. Those were HER own words. Or was this man deceiving him as the others had?

But the captain, eying him curiously, but still amusedly, added: "I even thought of bringing her as one of my witnesses, until"—

"Until what?" asked Randolph quickly, as he saw the captain had hesitated.

"Until I found she wasn't to be trusted; until I found she was too thick with Bill," said the captain bluntly. "And now she's gone to England with him and the boy, I suppose she'll make him come to terms."

"Come to terms?" echoed Randolph. "I don't understand." Yet he had an instinctive fear that he did.

"Well," said the captain slowly, "suppose she might prefer the chance of being the wife of a grown-up baronet to being the governess of one who was only a minor? She's a cute girl," he added dryly.

"But," said Randolph indignantly, "you have other witnesses, I hope."

"Of course I have. I've got the Spanish records now from the Callao priest, and they're put in a safe place should anything happen to me—if anything could happen to a dead man!" he added grimly. "These proofs were all I was waiting for before I made up my mind whether I should blow the whole thing, or let it slide."

Randolph looked again with amazement at this strange man who seemed so indifferent to the claims of wealth, position, and even to revenge. It seemed inconceivable, and yet he could not help being impressed with his perfect sincerity. He was relieved, however, when Captain Dornton rose with apparent reluctance and put away his pipe.

"Now look here, my lad, I'm right glad to have overhauled you again, whatever happened or is going to happen, and there's my hand upon it! Now, to come to business. I'm going over to England on this job, and I want you to come and help me."

Randolph's heart leaped. The appeal revived all his old boyish enthusiasm, with his secret loyalty to the man before him. But he suddenly remembered his past illusions, and for an instant he hesitated.

"But the bank," he stammered, scarce knowing what to say.

The captain smiled. "I will pay you better than the bank; and at the end of four months, in whatever way this job turns out, if you still wish to return here, I will see that you are secured from any loss. Perhaps you may be able to get a leave of absence. But your real object must be kept a secret from every one. Not a word of my existence or my purpose must be blown before I am ready. You and Jack Redhill are all that know it now."

"But you have a lawyer?" said the surprised Randolph.

"Not yet. I'm my own lawyer in this matter until I get fairly under way. I've studied the law enough to know that as soon as I prove that I'm alive the case must go on on account of my heir, whether I choose to cry quits or not. And it's just THAT that holds my hand."

Randolph stared at the extraordinary man before him. For a moment, as the strange story of his miraculous escape and his still more wonderful indifference to it all recurred to his mind, he felt a doubt of the narrator's truthfulness or his sanity. But another glance at the sailor's frank eyes dispelled that momentary suspicion. He held out his hand as frankly, and grasping Captain Dornton's, said, "I will go."

V

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