The Mystery of Cloomber Read online

  CHAPTER XII. OF THE THREE FOREIGN MEN UPON THE COAST

  It must have been eleven or twelve o'clock before I awoke, and it seemedto me in the flood of golden light which streamed into my chamber thatthe wild, tumultuous episodes of the night before must have formed partof some fantastic dream.

  It was hard to believe that the gentle breeze which whispered so softlyamong the ivy-leaves around my window was caused by the same elementwhich had shaken the very house a few short hours before. It was as ifNature had repented of her momentary passion and was endeavouring tomake amends to an injured world by its warmth and its sunshine. A chorusof birds in the garden below filled the whole air with their wonder andcongratulations.

  Down in the hall I found a number of the shipwrecked sailors, lookingall the better for their night's repose, who set up a buzz of pleasureand gratitude upon seeing me.

  Arrangements had been made to drive them to Wigtown, whence they were toproceed to Glasgow by the evening train, and my father had given ordersthat each should be served with a packet of sandwiches and hard-boiledeggs to sustain him on the way.

  Captain Meadows thanked us warmly in the name of his employers for themanner in which we had treated them, and he called for three cheers fromhis crew, which were very heartily given. He and the mate walked downwith us after we had broken our fast to have a last look at the scene ofthe disaster.

  The great bosom of the bay was still heaving convulsively, and its waveswere breaking into sobs against the rocks, but there was none of thatwild turmoil which we had seen in the early morning. The long, emeraldridges, with their little, white crests of foam, rolled slowly andmajestically in, to break with a regular rhythm--the panting of a tiredmonster.

  A cable length from the shore we could see the mainmast of the barquefloating upon the waves, disappearing at times in the trough of the sea,and then shooting up towards Heaven like a giant javelin, shiningand dripping as the rollers tossed it about. Other smaller pieces ofwreckage dotted the waters, while innumerable spars and packages werelittered over the sands. These were being drawn up and collected ina place of safety by gangs of peasants. I noticed that a couple ofbroad-winged gulls were hovering and skimming over the scene of theshipwreck, as though many strange things were visible to them beneaththe waves. At times we could hear their raucous voices as they cried toone another of what they saw.

  "She was a leaky old craft," said the captain, looking sadly out to sea,"but there's always a feeling of sorrow when we see the last of a shipwe have sailed in. Well, well, she would have been broken up in anycase, and sold for firewood."

  "It looks a peaceful scene," I remarked. "Who would imagine that threemen lost their lives last night in those very waters?"

  "Poor fellows," said the captain, with feeling. "Should they be castup after our departure, I am sure, Mr. West, that you will have themdecently interred."

  I was about to make some reply when the mate burst into a loud guffaw,slapping his thigh and choking with merriment.

  "If you want to bury them," he said, "you had best look sharp, or theymay clear out of the country. You remember what I said last night? Justlook at the top of that 'ere hillock, and tell me whether I was in theright or not?"

  There was a high sand dune some little distance along the coast, andupon the summit of this the figure was standing which had attracted themate's attention. The captain threw up his hands in astonishment as hiseyes rested upon it.

  "By the eternal," he shouted, "it's Ram Singh himself! Let us overhaulhim!"

  Taking to his heels in his excitement he raced along the beach, followedby the mate and myself, as well as by one or two of the fishermen whohad observed the presence of the stranger.

  The latter, perceiving our approach, came down from his post ofobservation and walked quietly in our direction, with his head sunk uponhis breast, like one who is absorbed in thought.

  I could not help contrasting our hurried and tumultuous advance with thegravity and dignity of this lonely Oriental, nor was the matter mendedwhen he raised a pair of steady, thoughtful dark eyes and inclined hishead in a graceful, sweeping salutation. It seemed to me that we werelike a pack of schoolboys in the presence of a master.

  The stranger's broad, unruffled brow, his clear, searching gaze,firm-set yet sensitive mouth, and clean-cut, resolute expression, allcombined to form the most imposing and noble presence which I had everknown. I could not have imagined that such imperturbable calm and atthe same time such a consciousness of latent strength could have beenexpressed by any human face.

  He was dressed in a brown velveteen coat, loose, dark trousers, with ashirt that was cut low in the collar, so as to show the muscular,brown neck, and he still wore the red fez which I had noticed the nightbefore.

  I observed with a feeling of surprise, as we approached him, that noneof these garments showed the slightest indication of the rough treatmentand wetting which they must have received during their wearer'ssubmersion and struggle to the shore.

  "So you are none the worse for your ducking," he said in a pleasant,musical voice, looking from the captain to the mate. "I hope that yourpoor sailors have found pleasant quarters."

  "We are all safe," the captain answered. "But we had given you up forlost--you and your two friends. Indeed, I was just making arrangementsfor your burial with Mr. West here."

  The stranger looked at me and smiled.

  "We won't give Mr. West that trouble for a little time yet," heremarked; "my friends and I came ashore all safe, and we have foundshelter in a hut a mile or so along the coast. It is lonely down there,but we have everything which we can desire."

  "We start for Glasgow this afternoon," said the captain; "I shall bevery glad if you will come with us. If you have not been in Englandbefore you may find it awkward travelling alone."

  "We are very much indebted to you for your thoughtfulness," Ram Singhanswered; "but we will not take advantage of your kind offer. SinceNature has driven us here we intend to have a look about us before weleave."

  "As you like," the captain said, shrugging his shoulders. "I don'tthink you are likely to find very much to interest you in this hole of aplace."

  "Very possibly not," Ram Singh answered with an amused smile. "Youremember Milton's lines:

  'The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a hell of Heaven, a heaven of Hell.'

  I dare say we can spend a few days here comfortably enough. Indeed, Ithink you must be wrong in considering this to be a barbarous locality.I am much mistaken if this young gentleman's father is not Mr. JamesHunter West, whose name is known and honoured by the pundits of India."

  "My father is, indeed, a well-known Sanscrit scholar," I answered inastonishment.

  "The presence of such a man," observed the stranger slowly, "changes awilderness into a city. One great mind is surely a higher indication ofcivilisation than are incalculable leagues of bricks and mortar.

  "Your father is hardly so profound as Sir William Jones, or so universalas the Baron Von Hammer-Purgstall, but he combines many of the virtuesof each. You may tell him, however, from me that he is mistaken inthe analogy which he has traced between the Samoyede and Tamulic wordroots."

  "If you have determined to honour our neighbourhood by a short stay,"said I, "you will offend my father very much if you do not put up withhim. He represents the laird here, and it is the laird's privilege,according to our Scottish custom, to entertain all strangers of reputewho visit this parish."

  My sense of hospitality prompted me to deliver this invitation, thoughI could feel the mate twitching at my sleeves as if to warn me thatthe offer was, for some reason, an objectionable one. His fears were,however, unnecessary, for the stranger signified by a shake of the headthat it was impossible for him to accept it.

  "My friends and I are very much obliged to you," he said, "but we haveour own reasons for remaining where we are. The hut which we occupy isdeserted and partly ruined, but we Easterns have trained ourselves todo without most of those thin
gs which are looked upon as necessaries inEurope, believing firmly in that wise axiom that a man is rich, not inproportion to what he has, but in proportion to what he can dispensewith. A good fisherman supplies us with bread and with herbs, we haveclean, dry straw for our couches; what could man wish for more?"

  "But you must feel the cold at night, coming straight from the tropics,"remarked the captain. "Perhaps our bodies are cold sometimes. Wehave not noticed it. We have all three spent many years in the UpperHimalayas on the border of the region of eternal snow, so we are notvery sensitive to inconveniences of the sort."

  "At least," said I, "you must allow me to send you over some fish andsome meat from our larder."

  "We are not Christians," he answered, "but Buddhists of the higherschool. We do not recognise that man has a moral right to slay an ox ora fish for the gross use of his body. He has not put life into them, andhas assuredly no mandate from the Almighty to take life from them saveunder most pressing need. We could not, therefore, use your gift if youwere to send it."

  "But, sir," I remonstrated, "if in this changeable and inhospitableclimate you refuse all nourishing food your vitality will fail you--youwill die."

  "We shall die then," he answered, with an amused smile. "And now,Captain Meadows, I must bid you adieu, thanking you for your kindnessduring the voyage, and you, too, good-bye--you will command a ship ofyour own before the year is out. I trust, Mr. West, that I may see youagain before I leave this part of the country. Farewell!"

  He raised his red fez, inclined his noble head with the stately gracewhich characterised all his actions, and strode away in the directionfrom which he had come.

  "Let me congratulate you, Mr. Hawkins," said the captain to the mate aswe walked homewards. "You are to command your own ship within the year."

  "No such luck!" the mate answered, with a pleased smile upon hismahogany face, "still, there's no saying how things may come out. Whatd'ye think of him, Mr. West?"

  "Why," said I, "I am very much interested in him. What a magnificenthead and bearing he has for a young man. I suppose he cannot be morethan thirty."

  "Forty," said the mate.

  "Sixty, if he is a day," remarked Captain Meadows. "Why, I have heardhim talk quite familiarly of the first Afghan war. He was a man then,and that is close on forty years ago."

  "Wonderful!" I ejaculated. "His skin is as smooth and his eyes are asclear as mine are. He is the superior priest of the three, no doubt."

  "The inferior," said the captain confidently. "That is why he does allthe talking for them. Their minds are too elevated to descend to mereworldly chatter."

  "They are the strangest pieces of flotsam and jetsam that were everthrown upon this coast," I remarked. "My father will be mightilyinterested in them."

  "Indeed, I think the less you have to do with them the better for you,"said the mate. "If I do command my own ship I'll promise you that Inever carry live stock of that sort on board of her. But here we are allaboard and the anchor tripped, so we must bid you good-bye."

  The wagonette had just finished loading up when we arrived, and thechief places, on either side of the driver, had been reserved for my twocompanions, who speedily sprang into them. With a chorus of cheers thegood fellows whirled away down the road, while my father, Esther, and Istood upon the lawn and waved our hands to them until they disappearedbehind the Cloomber woods, _en route_ for the Wigtown railway station.Barque and crew had both vanished now from our little world, the onlyrelic of either being the heaps of _debris_ upon the beach, which wereto lie there until the arrival of an agent from Lloyd's.