“Yes,” said Lestrange, looking at the paper; “that is my advertisement.”
“Well, it’s strange—very strange,” said Captain Fountain, “that I should have lit on it only yesterday. I’ve had it all three years in my chest, the way old papers get lying at the bottom with odds and ends. Mightn’t a’ seen it now, only the missus cleared the raffle out of the chest, and, ‘Give me that paper,’ I says, seeing it in her hand; and I fell to reading it, for a man’ll read anything bar tracts lying in bed eight months, as I’ve been with the dropsy. I’ve been whaler man and boy forty year, and my last ship was the Seahorse. Over seven years ago one of my men picked up something on a beach of one of them islands east of the Marquesas—we’d put in to water—”
“Yes, yes,” said Lestrange. “What was it he found?”
“Missus!” roared the captain in a voice that shook the walls of the room.
The door opened, and the woman appeared.
“Fetch me my keys out of my trousers pocket.”
The trousers were hanging up on the back of the door, as if only waiting to be put on. The woman fetched the keys, and he fumbled over them and found one. He handed it to her, and pointed to the drawer of a bureau opposite the bed.
She knew evidently what was wanted, for she opened the drawer and produced a box, which she handed to him. It was a small cardboard box tied round with a bit of string. He undid the string, and disclosed a child’s tea service: a teapot, cream jug, six little plates—all painted with a pansy.
It was the box which Emmeline had always been losing—lost again.
Lestrange buried his face in his hands. He knew the things. Emmeline had shown them to him in a burst of confidence. Out of all that vast ocean he had searched unavailingly: they had come to him like a message, and the awe and mystery of it bowed him down and crushed him.
The captain had placed the things on the newspaper spread out by his side, and he was unrolling the little spoons from their tissue-paper covering. He counted them as if entering up the tale of some trust, and placed them on the newspaper.
“When did you find them?” asked Lestrange, speaking with his face still covered.
“A matter of over seven years ago,” replied the captain, “we’d put in to water at a place south of the line—Palm Tree Island we whalemen call it, because of the tree at the break of the lagoon. One of my men brought it aboard, found it in a shanty built of sugar-canes which the men bust up for devilment.”
“Good God!” said Lestrange. “Was there no one there—nothing but this box?”
“Not a sight or sound, so the men said; just the shanty abandoned seemingly. I had no time to land and hunt for castaways, I was after whales.”
“How big is the island?”
“Oh, a fairish middle-sized island—no natives. I’ve heard tell it’s taboo; why, the Lord only knows—some crank of the Kanakas, I s’pose. Anyhow, there’s the findings—you recognise them?”
“I do.”
“Seems strange,” said the captain, “that I should pick ’em up; seems strange your advertisement out, and the answer to it lying amongst my gear, but that’s the way things go.”
“Strange!” said the other. “It’s more than strange.”
“Of course,” continued the captain, “they might have been on the island hid away som’ere, there’s no saying; only appearances are against it. Of course they might be there now unbeknownst to you or me.”
“They are there now,” answered Lestrange, who was sitting up and looking at the playthings as though he read in them some hidden message. “They are there now. Have you the position of the island?”
“I have. Missus, hand me my private log.”
She took a bulky, greasy, black notebook from the bureau, and handed it to him. He opened it, thumbed the pages, and then read out the latitude and longitude.
“I entered it on the day of finding—here’s the entry. ‘Adams brought aboard child’s toy box out of deserted shanty, which men pulled down; traded it to me for a caulker of rum.’ The cruise lasted three years and eight months after that; we’d only been out three when it happened. I forgot all about it: three years scrubbing round the world after whales doesn’t brighten a man’s memory. Right round we went, and paid off at Nantucket. Then, after a fortni’t on shore and a month repairin’, the old Seahorse was off again, I with her. It was at Honolulu this dropsy took me, and back I come here, home. That’s the yarn. There’s not much to it, but, seein’ your advertisement, I thought I might answer it.”
Lestrange took Fountain’s hand and shook it.
“You see the reward I offered?” he said. “I have not my cheque book with me, but you shall have the cheque in an hour from now.”
“No, sir,” replied the captain; “if anything comes of it, I don’t say I’m not open to some small acknowledgment, but ten thousand dollars for a five-cent box—that’s not my way of doing business.”
“I can’t make you take the money now—I can’t even thank you properly now,” said Lestrange—“I am in a fever; but when all is settled, you and I will settle this business. My God!”
He buried his face in his hands again.
“I’m not wishing to be inquisitive,” said Captain Fountain, slowly putting the things back in the box and tucking the paper shavings round them, “but may I ask how you propose to move in this business?”
“I will hire a ship at once and search.”
“Ay,” said the captain, wrapping up the little spoons in a meditative manner; “perhaps that will be best.”
He felt certain in his own mind that the search would be fruitless, but he did not say so. If he had been absolutely certain in his mind without being
