Chapter XX “That Bar of Gold was Stolen from Me,” Said Kep
In six weeks’ time they were once more leaving Zanzibar and heading southward for the Cape.
The men of the midget fleet, whom they had taken prisoners, were left at Zanzibar, and in due time would be tried for piracy and murder on the high seas, and no doubt many of them would meet the doom they so richly deserved.
Kep had searched for his Arab friend high and low, but he was not to be found, and neither he nor dear Zeena would he ever see again. He would have given a good deal to know they were safe, or even to know something of their fate, whate’er it may have been.
Kep’s little romance was ended.
There were no letters from either Madge or his father, for whom he cared so much, but he felt sure that both must have written and that their letters had been destroyed in the bombardment.
The Breezy entered Symon’s Bay in triumph. No wonder, for under her wing were the four captured gun-boats of the midget fleet. And all the English-speaking world had been singing the praises of the broadsword-men of the Breezy.
Dispatches, of course, and private letters from men in the Admiralty.
Very simple had been the narrative which the bold sailor Breezy had sent to the Lords Commissioners. But they could read between the lines, and he was promised his promotion at once if he chose to leave the ship and go home to take it up.
He decided to hold on to the end of the commission. The officers, too, would certainly be promoted, and even Kep, it was hinted, was to receive an appointment when he arrived in England that doubtless would be very much to his taste—this was mentioned in private letters only. The Admiralty never forgets its dignity. But what pleased the Captain most of all was an autograph letter from the King himself, thanking him and his officers for so bravely upholding the glory of the Royal navy. The King commanded him also to visit him on his return, if God in His goodness should spare both their lives.
A mail came in from England before the Breezy once more sailed for the still-farther east.
There were letters from home for nearly all hands, and one from Kep’s father inside Madge’s. Sore and sad was Kep’s heart when he read it.
Both were well and likewise Bounder, but Martello Castle and lands were let, and they were living in a small cottage near the sea. “Very happy, though,” Madge’s letter said, and poverty made her love her father all the more, and he is now proud of you, Kep, so he told her, and we all long so much to see our dear boy again. There was a postscript, as there is in most young ladies’ letters. It ran as follows: “P.S.—Old Elspet sends her love, and I haven’t married the wealthy Israelite yet.”
The last word was strongly underlined. Kep kissed the letter, and there were tears in his eyes as he refolded it.
He would put it under his pillow to-night just to see what he should dream about. Well, I for one cannot laugh at Kep, for often enough when far away at sea I’ve kept letters from home under my pillow for weeks. It was hours and hours before Kep fell asleep that night, notwithstanding. Madge’s letter brought the past back again so vividly. Ah! he had been happier than he knew of.
The splendid old castle, the cliffs and rocks and moorlands wild and wide, and his own little turret chamber high above the rookery in the rustling elms. Was he never to see them more?
Never as a boy, and, ah! boyhood is life’s brightest happiest season.
The Breezy had been in commission nearly two and a half years, and there was at least a year to go by yet, and then Kep was to have an appointment.
It could not be as a middy, or anything of that sort, of course, because the laws of the Admiralty are inflexible. The executive officers have all to enter the service between the ages of twelve and thirteen.
Never mind, Kep determined to continue his study of languages, and of everything else, and who could tell what he might not rise to in course of time.
Kep, the reader does not need to be told, was very clever, and moreover he had a first-class idea of himself, and I never blame any boy for that.
At all events one never does get to the top of the tree unless he tries to, and Kep made a vow that night that he was going to try and keep on trying hard as ever he knew how to.
As to the letter under his pillow well—he never dreamt a single dream.
That was droll perhaps, but a fact.
Before stretching away out into the limitless ocean again, the Breezy lay for a few days at Cape Town.
Do you know Cape Town, boys, and the charming scenery around? The wild mountains that frown over it, ablaze with greenery, and the crimson of heaths and wild flowers, such as we in this tame domestic England can only cultivate in our hot-houses.
The brown soil and the bare brown bluffs that peep through here and there, only adding an extra charm to their beauty. To see these grand old hills even at a distance and gaze up into their enchanted glens and valleys, is something worth journeying six thousand miles to behold. Beautiful under the midday sun, still more lovely when sunset sheds its rainbow hues over them and over the sea; something to dream about when the mystic moonlight tones and softens their lines. Have you seen them at a distance? Nay, but have you wandered among them, wandered and wondered at all you saw! Then have you in reality seen a bit of life.
A fig for some men and women, who have rushed such places, hurriedly and excitedly “doing” them. These know no more about their true grandeur, beauty and solemnity than does a child with a South African picture postcard in its chubby hands.
Well, Kep asked leave to go on shore one day here, and of course obtained it, and was permitted to take his friend Adolph with him.
They were going to have a little pic-nic all to themselves.
“Take your gun, Charlie,” McTavish said, and bring me off the biggest black snake you can find. I want to skeletonise the beggar, in order to solve a little problem in Natural History that Mr. Wynn and I are not on the same platform about.
They landed in a shore-boat, he and Adolph, as they wanted to be all by themselves. Past the busy quays and docks and along through the busy well-thronged streets—Kep loved not these, loved not civilization of any kind. It was nature, and its wilds alone that had charms for this strange boy.
They did not speak a deal until they got out of the suburbs, and up, up, up to the top of a high mountain. Adolph was a little out of wind ere he reached the summit, and had to lie down for a breather. But Kep, as light as a lark and as hard as heather, felt fit to soar to any height.
“Oh, look around you, Adolph. Look at the sea. Doesn’t its beauty thrill you? Ah! who could settle down as a landsman, who has ever felt the glamour of old ocean in his heart. But now, old comrade, let us eat and drink, and then talk. It is just like old times to have you all to myself. Do you mind the Island of Snakes, Adolphus?”
He spoke in French.
“Oui, oui,” said Adolph, “and I remember the gold also. I knew when you brought me here that you meant to speak of that. But the gold is all yours, Kep. It was you who found it. You who dived and discovered the treasure, and——”
“Hold one minute, comrade. That gold is not yet found. Don’t forget that; or there may be so little to find, that it may not pay the expense of searching for it.”
“Ah, but, Kep, I know you mean to try.”
“Mean to? Well, yes, and I long to do so so far more now than ever. I have had letters from home and they have stirred and subdued me. Nay, but they have aged me. I’m a boy no longer, but a thinking, busy-brained man.”
Adolph was silent.
“My father has let and left his fine estate. He has come down in the world, Adolph, and I fear it may break the old man’s heart. He is living by the sea which he loves so well, living in peace and quiet, that is if a seaman-bred can ever be restful. And I fear that Madge, my dear sister, may now think it her duty to marry a certain wealthy man whom she hates, in order to please father. He is older far than she, and on his death all the wealth would be hers.”
“I should say she could not do better. That is my continental view of the matter, Kep.”
“Ah! but comrade, poor Madge has had a little affaire de coeur, which I did not tell you. Only a child’s romance.”
“That might alter the case,” said Adolph demurely enough now, because he saw that Kep was very much in earnest.
“See,” said the boy, “I have worn myself almost thin, brain-working and studying, for a time to come, when I shall be great, though never perhaps wealthy.”
“What, not even if we recover those sunken millions?”
“I don’t even allow these to count for anything, Adolph. Money can do much, but it never can satisfy the longings of an ambitious boy. I have,” he added, “a double incentive now to struggle to rise. I have always loved my father and he loves me, although we are both too Scotch ever to have shown it. But, Adolph, I never felt I loved him half so much as I find I now do.
“He, the quiet, the unobtrusive unselfish man, who never in all his life lived half so much for himself as for those around him, he, a true-born Nature’s King, to be hurled from his high estate and forced to live in a cottage. He whom—Oh, but I cannot bear to speak of it, Adolph, and I groan in bed when I think that my conduct may have contributed extra sorrow to his blameless life. But listen, Adolphus——”
Here the boy sprang to his feet on the mountain top, extending his right arm heavenwards in the impressive attitude the Scottish people assume when taking an oath—
“Young in years though I be, I shall now live for the father I have wronged, live for him, work for him, until he is once more restored to his princely Martello Castle. Don’t smile at me even in your heart, Adolphus. I am romantic, impulsive, foolish, but, oh comrade, I am sincere.” Then Kep became the boy again.
“I’m happier now,” he said laughing. “I’ve found a peg to hang my mental hat upon. I feel I have now something to live for. Come, I shall pipe to show you I am quite recovered.”
“A touch of Wagner then,” said Adolph merrily, “and we’ll imagine we’re back again on the island.”
It was like the piping of Pan. It appeared not to come from any earthly instrument. In the silence it seemed to stir the mountains all around. Shrill yet poetical, as the song of the lark, or sweet and sad, like the love notes of Philomel in his native England.
Then suddenly it ceased, and Kep threw himself down to gaze for a moment at a white-winged ship on the blue of the far-off horizon.
“Ah! my old comrade,” he said at last, “we must let our millions slumber for a time down in old ocean’s slimy bed, and when we have time we may go in search of them. You got the latitude and longitude, didn’t you, and have written it down?”
“There it is, Kep, that is your copy; I have mine, and I keep it under the lining of my sea-chest lid. It must neither be lost not shown to anyone.”
“True.”
“Yes, true, because I have more hopes than you.”
“But even should there be gold there, it is safe. No one could dream of diving for sunken treasure in a place like that.”
“I suppose,” said Adolph, “you still have the bar of gold, though it was not large, which you brought up.”
“Oh! I forgot to tell you. That bit of stuff was stolen from me on board the ship that saved us!”
“Bad news, Kep. I don’t half like it. Did you suspect anyone?”
“Only that first mate. He drank on the sly, and he was the only one who ever came in to yarn with me.”
“Well, Kep, it may be all right. But that evil-looking man, if ever his mind was a moment clear, would naturally wonder where you got that bar. It was a shelly-looking piece, and he would judge it came from the sea-bottom, and—— Well, there are a good many ‘ands,’ for it is always the improbable that happens on the ocean-wave, Kep.”
“Nothing is going to trouble me,” said Kep, “one way or the other. But now come, let us be going. I’ve got Dr. McTavish’s snake to shoot yet.”