"Yet truly," he murmured, "you are such glorious reality that I know at last the true reason and wherefore of jewels."
"I found them in a coffer ... a little, beautiful casket and at first scarce dared touch them."
"Yet have they been waiting for you, Antonia. And now, thank God, here are you to claim them at last."
"But these are worth a fortune and I ... I could never accept such gift from you, Adam."
"Ay, but you will. You shall take them from ... your faithful, loving ... brother!"
"Half-brother!" she reminded him smiling, though with tears in her eyes. "But, Adam, I ... oh ... my dear."
"Avast, Anthony! Belay, messmate! What are a few such trinkets 'twixt the likes o' you and me? Say no more about 'em, or——" Here, with loud double knock, Jimbo presented himself to bow profoundly to Antonia and say to Adam:
"If yo' please, Cap'n sah, beggin' yo' pardon and excuse, but yere's dat ol' Joel Bym come aboard and begging de favah ob speech wi' you."
"This is well. Say I'll with him anon."
"Pray," said Antonia, "suffer he come here to us."
"Right gladly, if you will. Bid him hither, Jimbo."
Thus presently came Joel, as bronzed and hairy, as trig and sailorly as ever, for, though his worn garments betrayed poverty they were neatly patched and darned as only true sailorman might.
"Sir," quoth he, taking off battered old hat and crushing it nervously in his powerful hands, "by cock but I'm glad for to clap eyes on ee again, ay, that I am, sir—and my lady too!"
"Then give me your hand, Joel. Now sit down, man, sit down. Jimbo—rum! Come, wet your whistle, Joel, then pipe up and tell what's chanced you all this time."
"Plenty, sir, by cock, and most on it hardship, and lastly shipwreck and a Spanish prison till us won out, Surgeon Perks and me. And since that, sir, what wi' plaguey wound I took and one ill luck atop of another here in Port Royal, I've come down to working in the cane-brakes along o' poor black slaves, sir, ay, by cock, I have!"
"You might have done worse, Joel. Howbeit, here are you aboard with me again, and here you shall bide if ye will."
"What, sir, will ye 'list me?"
"Ay, right gladly, Joel."
"Lord love ee now ... and on this ship as be called the Golden Fortun'! And to sarve under you as be so famous and lucky! Oh, Cap'n Adam, I dunno what to say, only—by cock, I'm that amazing glad as I can't find no word for it."
"Then take a sip o' rum, Joel, then sit back and tell us of your last voyage with Captain Absalom and what befell."
"Why then, first, sir, here's poor Cap'n Absalom's noble plantation ruinated by weather, by cock! So he tries for to right hisself by cards and horses, and ruinates his money affairs. So then he begins ruinating hisself wi' rum, by cock! Ay, goes from bad to worse, down—and down, till Cap'n Smy and me and Surgeon Perks takes him in hand and brings him up short, ay, with a round turn. So the end of it is, we scrapes together what money we have and fit out a ship for to try our luck agin Black Bartlemy his treasure. But luck proves con-trairy, our ship springs a leak as forces us to make for one o' the Keys. But then comes a wind as blows so fierce and foul it drives and wrecks us, by cock—right beneath the very guns o' Santo Domingo. And so, after a stiffish fight, we're taken—all as is left of us, and clapped fast into prison o' the Inquisition where poor Cap'n Smy, being an officer and refusing very fierce to turn Papist, is put to the torment—frequent! And him only the fiercer therefor and more defiant ... though he groaned right piteous whenso they tortured of him,—and small wonder! By cock, I can hear him yet! Sometimes I hears him in my sleep and wakes all of a sweat I do. As for me, I kills me one o' the guards and won free, along o' Surgeon Perks. And so, Cap'n Adam, here am I back now along o' you and mighty glad therefore, by cock!"
"But," demanded Antonia with a dreadful, trembling eagerness, "tell me, Joel, what of my ... what of Captain Absalom Troy?"
"Why, my lady, I ... I dunno. Ye see he was took away to ... another part o' the prison."
"But you ... must have seen him now and then, oh surely?"
"Why ... no, mam!"
"Then ... you must have heard tell of him."
"No, my lady ... leastways ... only off and on like."
"Well ... what did you ... hear?"
"Why naught, mam, naught to matter ... except as him and Cap'n Smy had ... fell out like."
"You mean quarrelled?"
"Ay, summat o' that kind, mam."
"What about—tell me, Joel, tell me!"
"So I would, my lady, if ... if I might. All as I know is that Cap'n Smy was ... well ... a bit set again him, fierce like."
"How know you this?"
"For that poor Cap'n Smy was often dragged through my cell afore and after torture ... and cry out, he would, and mighty sharp and bitter ... by reason o' cruel pain, I guess."
"Oh, but why ... why would he cry out against his friend, Captain Troy, so bitterly?"
"Why, mam ... my lady, this I can't tell ... not knowing, d'ye see?"
"Joel, do you mind any ... any one of the words he cried against Captain Troy, any of the many things he said—do you?"
"No, mam."
"Think, Joel, think! Tell me, and speak the very truth,—what do you remember?"
"Nothing, mam, not nohow, my lady—nary a thing!" answered Joel, cowering beneath her level gaze and smearing knotted fist across his moist and furrowed brow.
"Then why do you shrink, Joel, and look so strange?"
"My lady, I ... I can't abide for to ... to think on they torturings ... the groanings and cries ... so cruel frequent! Ay, and there was others besides poor Cap'n Smy ... women too! And there'd ha' been me belike if I hadn't broke prison."
"But ... Captain Absalom was never tortured ... not once, say you, Joel?"
"Nay, my lady, I ... never said as much ... he may ha' been, for all I know. Ay, belike he was."
"Though you never heard of it."
"No, mam, I never did. And this should be your comfort, sure-ly, my lady."
"I ... wonder!" she whispered. "I wonder! For there be worse things than torture, Joel! At the least I think so. One may save body by losing honour, ay, by losing one's ... very soul."
"Rum!" quoth Adam, suddenly. "Joel, you forget your rum. Toss it off, man, then go forrard to Ned Bowser, the Master, and say I've enlisted you one of our Dreadnoughts."
"Ay, ay, sir! And thankee kindly in all gratitood, by cock!" And gulping his liquor, away strode Joel with such suspicious haste that Antonia leapt up as if to follow, then turned on Adam instead.
"Ah!" she exclaimed. "Why did you send him away so suddenly? And why did he evade all my questions? Oh, what think you of it, Adam?"
"That you plague yourself to no purpose. And so I——"
"Don' go fo' to lay yo' great, black paws on me, yo' hugeous, blackymoor-niggerman, else I claw out bofe yo' great, frightsome eyes,—so I warns yo'!" cried a deep, rich contralto voice beyond the door, at which sudden, fierce outcry, Antonia smiled wanly, saying:
"Yonder is my sweet little Caruna!"
As she spoke, the door swung wide and in strode a gigantic young negress, tall, very nearly, as Jimbo himself; a ponderous, leathern trunk was balanced lightly upon her head, a huge bundle beneath one shapely, muscular arm, a large basket beneath the other, and girt about her waist hung a long, broad-bladed knife.
"Oh," cried she, ridding herself of these heavy burdens with a supple, graceful ease, to clasp her mistress in vastly protective embrace. "Oh, now de kind Lord be praised as I see yo' safe, my Bootiful Lady Precious! Dese brutalious sailormen fo'ce me to go wid dem, dey brings me, all a-trimble, onto dis great ship, and now dis hugeous black fellow roll him big gogglesome eyes at me like as I was any man's trash.... I think p'raps I better stick him wid my knife."