Short Fiction

two market-women were talking volubly about the heaven-knows-what that market-women do talk about; a stolid policeman gazed vacantly out of the window, and a mechanic read with absorbed attention a crumpled newspaper that had come out of his pocket. On the seat exactly opposite Duncombe sat, or, rather, sprawled, the red-haired boy whom he had last seen walking sulkily out of his mother’s parlour. Evidently he was going up to some evening class in the neighbouring cathedral town, and from the expression on his face it did not appear that he regarded the expedition with any particular favour. The evening was not a cold one, but he had turned up the collar of his coat about his ears and drawn his cap forward over his eyes. He returned Duncombe’s greeting with the embarrassed shyness of his age, and obviously did not desire to be much more conversational than he had been at the tea-table. But Duncombe, whose mind was still dwelling on the little wayside tragedy of fallen greatness that had been disclosed to him, was not going to let such an opportunity for improving the occasion slip through his hands.

“Your mother has been telling me a lot about old days, and how looked-up-to your father and grandfather were,” he said in a quiet, friendly voice, “and I have been telling her that she must look to you to keep up the credit of the name, and show yourself worthy of the stock you come from.”

He warmed with enthusiasm to the task of rousing the boy’s family pride and putting him on his mettle. “You must stand as high in everyone’s esteem as they did, and make your mother as proud of her name in the new days as she was in the old days.”

Then he stopped in the middle of his friendly homily; the boy was looking at him with the glazed stare of a trapped and helpless animal that sees the hunter approaching. Once again Duncombe experienced the uncomfortable certainty of being face to face with a tragedy whose nature he could not guess at.

The train drew up at a brightly lit platform. The market-women, still in a full flow of chatter, hooked their arms into a wonderful assortment of baskets, and prepared to disentangle themselves and their burdens from the carriage; the mechanic folded his crumpled newspaper into a tight bunch and thrust it into his pocket. The stolid policeman became suddenly alert and stern-visaged.

“Come along,” he said to the red-haired boy, and touched him on the arm.

The boy stumbled to his feet and drew his cap still lower over his eyes. Duncombe, with a sick feeling of distress in his heart, as of one who has struck or trampled on some wounded creature, watched the two thread their way through the cruelly observant station crowd, towards the grim prison that reared its long front beyond the station-walls.

The Treasure Ship

The great galleon lay in semi-retirement under the sand and weed and water of the northern bay where the fortune of war and weather had long ago ensconced it. Three and a quarter centuries had passed since the day when it had taken the high seas as an important unit of a fighting squadron⁠—precisely which squadron the learned were not agreed. The galleon had brought nothing into the world, but it had, according to tradition and report, taken much out of it. But how much? There again the learned were in disagreement. Some were as generous in their estimate as an income-tax assessor, others applied a species of higher criticism to the submerged treasure chests, and debased their contents to the currency of goblin gold. Of the former school was Lulu, Duchess of Dulverton.

The duchess was not only a believer in the existence of a sunken treasure of alluring proportions; she also believed that she knew of a method by which the said treasure might be precisely located and cheaply disembedded. An aunt on her mother’s side of the family had been Maid of Honour at the Court of Monaco, and had taken a respectful interest in the deep-sea researches in which the Throne of that country, impatient perhaps of its terrestrial restrictions, was wont to immerse itself. It was through the instrumentality of this relative that the duchess learned of an invention, perfected and very nearly patented by a Monegaskan savant, by means of which the home-life of the Mediterranean sardine might be studied at a depth of many fathoms in a cold white light of more than ballroom brilliancy. Implicated in this invention (and, in the duchess’s eyes, the most attractive part of it) was an electric suction dredge, specially designed for dragging to the surface such objects of interest and value as might be found in the more accessible levels of the ocean-bed. The rights of the invention were to be acquired for a matter of eighteen hundred francs, and the apparatus for a few thousand more. The Duchess of Dulverton was rich, as the world counted wealth; she nursed the hope of being one day rich at her own computation. Companies had been formed and efforts had been made again and again during the course of three centuries to probe for the alleged treasures of the interesting galleon; with the aid of this invention she considered that she might go to work on the wreck privately and independently. After all, one of her ancestors on her mother’s side was descended from Medina Sidonia, so she was of opinion that she had as much right to the treasure as anyone. She acquired the invention and bought the apparatus.

Among other family ties and encumbrances, Lulu possessed a nephew, Vasco Honiton, a young gentleman who was blessed with a small income and a large circle of relatives, and lived impartially and precariously on both. The name Vasco had been given him possibly in the hope that he might live up to its adventurous tradition, but he limited himself strictly to the home