can you, my reader, imagine a more tantalizing position than the one in which i now found myself? it took a great deal to arouse enthusiasm in the breast of old mr. staffurth, whose interest in the world had seemed to me as dried up as those musty parchments he was so constantly examining. but the mystery of it all had certainly awakened him, and he was as keen as myself to get to the bottom of it—and to the treasure, of which i had promised him a small portion as repayment for his services.
next day i went down to fresh wharf and found the thrush, with cranes creaking over her, looking more grimy and forbidding than ever. as i went on board the men one and all saluted me, and when i knocked at the door of the captain’s cabin there came a low gruff growl?—
“well, what is it now?”
i announced who i was, and was of course at once admitted. job seal, in shirt and trousers, had been lying in his bunk smoking, taking his ease after a full night ashore in company with his “chief.” he had been reading the paper, and a big glass of brandy and soda at his elbow told its own tale.
“come in, come in, doctor,” he cried cheerily, holding out his enormous hand; “i intended to come over and see you to-night. well, what’s the latest news of old mystery?”
“as i told you, he’s in the hands of the first specialist in lunacy in london, and under treatment at a private asylum.”
“will he get better?”
“nobody can tell that. the doctor, however, anticipates that he will.”
“well, i hope by the time i get back from this next trip he’ll have told you his story. we sail to-morrow on our usual round—cardiff, leghorn, naples, valencia, and home. but i don’t suppose we’ll be picking up any noah’s arks this trip—eh?”
“no,” i laughed. “i see that a paragraph has crept into the papers about our discovery, and it is discredited. one paper heads it ‘a seaman’s yarn.’ i suppose some of the men have been talking about it on shore.”
“suppose so. one o’ them chaps from the newspapers came aboard yesterday and began asking all about it, but i blessed him for his inquisitiveness, and sent him about his business. what the dickens has it to do with him?”
“quite right,” i said approvingly. “we ought to keep our knowledge to ourselves. people can believe or disbelieve, just as they like. if, however, they saw those bags of gold at the bank, i fancy it would convince them.”
“or if they saw old mister mystery with his red velvet jacket and sword,” he laughed. “lor’, doctor, i’ll never forget the funny figure that chap cut when we hauled him out. he was real scared at first, wasn’t he?”
his words brought back to my memory that never-to-be-forgotten evening of our discovery. the mystery of how the cumbersome old vessel had got afloat again was not one of the least connected with it.
the reason of my visit was to tell him the result of my inquiries and the neat manner in which we had been foiled. therefore, after some preliminaries, i explained to him all that i have set down in the previous chapter. he heard me through, blowing vigorously at his pipe and grunting, as was his habit. the amount of smoke his pipe emitted was an index to his thoughts. if pleased, his pipe burned slowly, the smoke rising in a tiny thin column; but if the contrary, the smoke came forth from pipe and mouth in clouds. the cabin was now so full that i could scarcely see across it, and when i arrived at the critical point and told him how i had been forestalled, he jumped up, exclaiming?—
“the son of a gun! he actually sold it for ’arf a quid!”
“he has,” i answered sadly. “if we could only get it back it might be the means of bringing wealth to all of us.”
“then you really believe in all this yarn what’s written in the parchments, doctor?” he asked.
“how can i do otherwise?” i said. “there are signatures and seals. besides, i have, i think, sufficiently proved that bartholomew da schorno, whoever he was, lived once at caldecott manor, and further, that the knuttons were owners of the manor farm. you must remember, too, that mr. staffurth is an expert, and not likely to mislead us.”
“well, doctor,” he said, “the whole thing makes a queer yarn, an’ that’s a fact. sometimes i almost feel as though the overhauling of noah’s ark was a dream, only you see we’ve already got about a thousand quid to go shares in. now, what i’ve been thinkin’, doctor, is that you’ll want a fair understandin’ if you’re goin’ to follow this thing up. i’ll be away, and shall have to leave it all in your hands. now, i’m a plain-spoken man—that you know. for my own part, i’m content with the thousand quid we hauled aboard, and if you like to forego your claim to the half of it, i’ll forego my claim to whatever you may find ashore. forgive me for speakin’ plain, doctor, won’t you?—for it’s no good a-beating about the bush.”
“well,” i said, “if you are ready to accept such an agreement, i also am ready, although i think, captain, that you may be doing an injustice to yourself.”
but job seal did not see it in that light. he was a hard-headed british skipper, and regarded a safe thousand pounds better than an imaginary million. for that nobody could blame him. on the one hand i felt regret at giving up my share of the gold, but on the other it left me open to share the treasure, if found, with the unknown descendant of the wollertons.
so we drew out together an agreement by which i relinquished all claim to the gold in the bank, and he, on his part, withdrew any claim upon any treasure discovered by means of the parchments found on board the seahorse.
i could see that after i had signed the paper job seal was greatly relieved. he was but human, not avaricious, he declared, but urged to the suggestion by the knowledge that he must be absent, and would be unable to assist in the search ashore.
and it so happened that for five hundred pounds i bought out my friend the skipper. who had the best of the bargain will be seen later in this curious chapter of exciting events.
i wrote an order to the bank to deliver up the gold at seal’s order at any time, and after a final drink shook hands and left.
“i may be over to see you before we sail, doctor,” were his parting words; “but if not, you’ll see me, all being well, back in london in about five weeks. good-bye,” he said, heartily gripping my hand; “and good luck to you in your search.”
at home in chelsea i sat calmly reflecting, smoking the while and lazily turning over the leaves of the old fifteenth-century manuscripts, the decretales summa, the trithemius, and others that i had found with the documents on board the seahorse. they were evidently bartholomew da schorno’s favourite reading, which showed that though he might have been a fierce sea-dog he was nevertheless a studious man, who preferred the old writers in their ancient manuscripts to the printed editions. they smelt musty now, but showed how well and diligently they had been studied. he must have been a devout catholic, surely, to have studied the decretales of the friar henry so assiduously. it was his property, for on the last leaf of vellum, in faded ink, was written his name: “bartholomew da schorno, cavaliere di santo stefano, maggio 5, 1579.”
i tried to conjure up what manner of man he was. probably that giant in stature whose skeleton had laid heaped in the big saloon of the seahorse. if so, he had surely been a magnificent successor to the crusaders of olden days—a powerful friend and a formidable foe. the latter he must certainly have been to tackle and capture one of the spanish galleons sent against england. but probably no ships ever saw such fierce and sanguinary frays as those of the knights of st. stephen. every man on board was a picked fighter, and against them even the dreaded power of the barbary pirates was insufficient, for the latter were gradually crushed, not, however, without enormous bloodshed on both sides.
the power of the corsairs at one time was so great that they constantly landed at points along what is now known as the corniche road, between the var mouth and genoa, and took whole villages captive, sacking and burning the houses, and laying desolate great tracts of country. thousands of christians were carried into slavery to north africa, and a veritable reign of terror existed along the mediterranean shore.
it took nearly a hundred years for the knights of st. stephen to crush the robbers, but they did so, owing to their indomitable pluck and hard and relentless fighting.
i recollected the old elizabethan portrait of the hard-faced man that hung upon the panelled wall, but could not believe that that was a picture of old bartholomew. no, i pictured him as a merry, round-faced, easy-going type, tall to notoriety, a giant in strength, a very demon in war, and a clever and ingenious administrator where his own personal affairs were concerned.
his independence in his quarrel with the duke of ferrara was shown by the manner in which he sold his estates and shook the dust of the province from his feet, and his religious fervour by the fact that although a wealthy man he braved the perils of the sea and of the fight to aid and release the christian slaves.
i could only think of him as a grand type of the past, a dandy in dress, and even in armour, a patrician in his food, and a sad dog where women were concerned. he was italian by birth, so it was to be presumed that he loved easily, and forgot with similar facility.
but reverie would not uplift the veil of mystery that surrounded the present situation.
now i, like you, my reader, had read all sorts of stories about hidden treasure, mostly imaginary, and all in more or less degree exciting. treasure exists, it seems, mostly on islands the exact latitude and longitude of which is a secret, or else in caves in guatemala or beneath the earth in mexico—all far afield. but here i had tangible proof of a treasure deposited in rural england in the days of good queen bess at some spot between the port of yarmouth and the village of caldecott. therefore, if you had been in my place, would you not have searched for that mysterious mr. purvis who bought the missing document from a half-drunken labourer for half a sovereign?
i carefully reviewed the situation, and after due consideration could only hope for one thing—namely, that the purchaser of that parchment, finding it useless to him, might sell it to one or other of the london booksellers who deal in manuscripts—quaritch, maggs, tregaskis, bumpas, dobell, and the others. the market for such things as codexes and interesting documents on vellum is limited, and in the hands of very few dealers; therefore, i later on wrote a letter to all of them from the list given me by mr. staffurth, saying that, if any document answering to the description which i gave should be offered for sale, they were commissioned to purchase it at any price up to fifty pounds.
this was, i thought, a step in the right direction. mr. purvis, when he found that the document he had purchased was useless, would probably dispose of it at a profit, and if he did so through any of the recognized channels, it must certainly fall into my hands.
job seal did not call, but three days later i received a much-smeared post-card, sent from cardiff, regretting that he had not been able to wish me good-bye as he had intended. he ended by an inquiry after old mister mystery, and asking me to send any important news to him at the poste restante at leghorn.
a fortnight went by. i went one day to ealing to see the mysterious man, but he was just the same, and knew me not. the weather was still hot in london, those blazing days when the very pavements seem aglow, but old mr. staffurth, whenever i called upon him, still sat in his back parlour poring over the codexes and valuable manuscripts submitted to him. often i consulted him, but, like me, he could see no way by which we could advance farther. things were at an absolute deadlock.
i believe that he rather blamed me for my settlement with seal, feeling that, after all, the continued existence of the treasure was still uncertain, for it might have been discovered and carried away years ago. still, towards me he was always the same courteous, low-spoken, if dry-as-dust old gentleman.
i went ever in search of the man who called himself purvis, but although there were many persons of that name in the london directory i was unable to discover the identical one who had tempted the drunken labourer with half a sovereign.
after three weeks of going hither and thither it became necessary to reflect upon matters more material, and, compelled to work at my profession for a living, i became locum tenens for a doctor who had a dispensary in the walworth road, near camberwell gate. probably that part of london is well known to you, the great wide thoroughfare that is one of the main arteries of south london, but dull, grey, and overcrowded; a depressing place for a man who like myself had so recently come from weeks of the open sea and sunshine.
i still bore the bronze of the sun and salt upon my cheeks, according to the remarks of my friends, but although well in health and with an appetite like the proverbial horse, my mind was full of the mystery of the seahorse and the ingenious purchase of the missing parchment.
the practice in the walworth road was a big and a poor one. the majority of the patients were hoarse-voiced costermongers from east street and its purlieus, seamstresses, labourers, and factory hands. there is nothing mean in “the road” itself, as it is called in the neighbourhood, but alas! many of the streets that run off it towards the old kent road are full of squalid poverty.
it was not my duty to be at the dispensary at night, the night calls being attended to by a medical friend of the man whose practice i was taking charge of; therefore at ten o’clock each night the boy closed the door, put out the red light, and i took the omnibus for chelsea.
one night just as the last patient, a garrulous old man with gout, had taken his departure and the cheap american timepiece on the mantelshelf was chiming ten, the signal for siddons, the boy, to turn off the gas in the red lamp, i heard voices in the shop that had been turned into a waiting-room. it was after hours, and siddons had his orders, therefore i did not anticipate that he would disobey them. but he did, for he entered, saying:?—
“there’s a lady just come, sir. must see you, sir—very urgent, she says.”
“do you know her?”
“no, sir—stranger,” replied the sharp cockney youth.
i groaned within myself, and announced my readiness to see her. she entered, and as she did so and our eyes met i rose to my feet, open-mouthed, utterly dumb.
