CHAPTER IV.

Te Aroha News, Volume III, Issue 110, 11 July 1885, Page 5

CHAPTER IV.

With an exclamation and a hurried glance around him, De Ferrieres threw himself before the intruder. But slowly lifting his large hand, and placing it on his lodger's breast, he quietly overbore the sick man's

s feeble resistance with an impact of power " that seemed almost as moral as it was phy- • sical. He did not appear to take any notice v of the room or its miserable surroundings ; 0 indeed, scarcely of the occupant. Still 3 pushing him with abstracted eyes and imt mobile face, to the ohair that Rosey had just i 1i 1 quitted, he made him sit down, and then 1 took up his own position on the pile of 5 cushions opposite. His usually underdone , complexion wa% of watery blueneas, but his t dull abstracted glance appeared to exorcise t a certain dumb, narcotic fascination on his - lodger. " I mout," said Nott^ slowly, " hey laid ; ye out here on sight, without enny warnin', i or dropped ye in yer tracks in Montgomery street, wherever ther was room to work a i six-shooter in comf'able. Johnson of Petaluny— him, ye know, ez had a game eye-fetohed Flynn comin 1 outer meetin' one Sun day, and it was only on account of hia wife* and she a secondhand one, so to speak. Theie was Walker of Contra Costa plugged that young Sacramento chap, whose name Idisremember,full o' holes jistez/ie was say in' 'Good by' to his darter, t mout hey done all this, if it had settled things to please me. For while you and Flynn and that Sacramento chap ess all about the same sort omen, Rosey's a difl'eront kind from their sort o' women." ! "Mademoiselle is an angel !" said De Forrieros, suddenly rising, with an excess of extravagance. " A saint ! Look ! I cram the lie, ha ! down his throat who challenges it." " Ef by mam'selle ye mean my Koeey,' said Nott, quietly laying his powerful hands on De Ferrieres's shoulders, and elowly pinning him down again upon his chair, " ye'ro ; about right, though she ain't mam'selle yet. Ez I was sayln\ I might hey killed you off hand if I hed thought it would hey been a ( good thing for Rosey." "For hor? Ah well ! Look, lam ready," interrupted De Ferrieres, again springing to his foot, and throwing open his coat with both hands. " See ! here at my heartfire !" 11 Ez 1 was say in'," continued Nott, once more pressing the excited man down in his chair, "I might hey wiped yo out — and mebbe ye wouldn't hey keered— or you might hey wiped me out, and I mout hoy said. ' Thank cc,' but I reckon this aint a case for what's comf'able for you and mo. It's what's good for Rosey. And the thing to kalkilate is, what's to be done ?" ; His small round eyes for the first time ( rested on De Ferrieres's face, and wero quickly withdrawn. It was evident that ; this abstracted look, which had fascinated his lodger, was merely a resolute avoidance of Do Forrieres's glance, and it became , apparent later that this avoidance was due to a ludicrous appreciation of De Ferrieres's ; fittractions. ' " And after we've done that we must kalkilate what Rosey is, and what Rosoy wants. , P'raps, ye allow, you know what Rosey is ? P'raps you've seen her prance round t in velvet bonnets and whito satin ( slippers, and aich. P'raps you've seen , tier readin' traeksj and v'yges, without ' waitin' to spell a word, or catch iier breath. But that ain't the Rosoy ez 1 , snow. It's little a child ez uster crawl in ( md out the tailboard of a Mizzouri wagon , Dn the alcali pizened plains, where there ] wasn't another bit of God's mercy on yearth So be seen for milss and miles. It's a little < ,'al as uster hunger and thirst ez quiet and \ nannerly ea she now oats and drinks in , plenty ; whose voice was ez steady with \ [njins yellin' round her nest in the loaves j )n Sweetwater ez in her purty cabin up , /onder. Thai's the gal ez I know ! That's j ;he Rosey oz my ole woman puts into my « inns one night arter we left Laraniie when ] iho fever was high, and sez, 'Abner,' sez the, ' the chariot is swingin' low for me t* light, but thar ain't room in it for hor or ] row to git in or hitch on. Take her and are her, so we kin all jine oa the other j hore,' sez she. And I knovved the other j hore wasn't no Kaliforny. And that night, )'raps the chariot swung lower than over tefore, and my ole woman stepped into it, ,nd left me and Rosey to creep on in the , ild wagon alone. It's them kind o' things," ; dded Mr Nott, thoughtfully, "that seems ! o point to my killing you on sight ez the > test thing to be done. And yet Rosey night not like it " He had slipped one of his feet out of his mgo carpet slippers, and, as he reached own to put it on again, he added calmly : ' And ez to yer marrying her, it ain't to be lone." The utterly bewildered expression which ransfigured De Ferrieres's face at this anlouncement was unobserved by Nott's .verted eyes, nor did he perceive that his istener the next nacment straightened his roct figure and adjusted hia cravat. "Ef Rosey," he continued, " hez read in r yages and tracks in Eyetalian and French iountries of such chaps ez you, and :alkilates you're the right kind to tie to, nebbee it mout hey done, if you'd been ivin' over there in a pallis, but somehow '. don't jibe in over hereand agree with a ship —and that ship lying comf'able ashore in Jan Francisco. You don't seem to suit tho slimate, you see, and your general gait is ikely to stampede the other cattle. Agin," aid Nott, with an ostentation of looking at lis companion, but really gazing on vacancy, " this fixed up antique style of fours does better with them ivy kivered •uins in Rome and Palmy ry that Rosey's nixed you up with, than it would yere. '. ain't sayin'," he added, as Do Ferrieres vas about to speak, " I ain't sayin' ez that jhild ain't smitten with ye. It ain't no use io lie and say she don't prefer you to her )ld father, or young chaps of her own age in' kind. I've seed it afor now. I iuspicioned it afor I seed her flip out o' ihis place to-night. Thar ! keep your hair >n, such ez it is !" he added as De Ferrieres attempted a quick deprecatory Gesture. "I ain't askin' yer how often she jomes here, nor what she sez to you nor you jo her. I ain't asked her, and I don't ask you. I'll allow ez you've settled all the preliminaries and bought her the ring and auch ; I'm only askin' you now, kalkilatin' you've got all the keerds in your own hand, ivbat you'll take to step out and leave the ooard ?" The dazed look of De Ferrieres might have forced itself even upon Nott's oneidead fatuity, had it not been a part of that gentleman's system to delicately look another way at that moment so as not to ambarrass his adversary's calculation. " Pardon," stammered De Ferrier.es, "but [do not comprehend !" He raised his hand to his head. "I am not well -I am stupid. Ah, mon Dieu !" "I ain't sayin'," added Nott more gently, "ez you don t feel bad. It's nat'ral. But it ain't business. I'm askin' you," he con tinued, taking from his breast-pocket a large | wallet, " how much you'll take in cash now, and the rest next steamer day, to give up Rosey and leave the ship." De Ferrieres staggered to his feet, despite Nott's restraining hand. "To leave mademoiselle and leave the ship?" heßaid huskily, "is it not?" ' ' In course. Yer can leave things yer jist ez you found 'em when you came, you know," continued Nott, for the first time looking around the miserable apartment. " It's a business job. I'll take the bales back agin, and you kin reckon up what you're out, countin' Rosey and loss o'time." "He wishes me to go -he has said," repeated De Ferrieres to himself thiokly.

" Bf ypu mean me when you say him, and ez thar ain't any other man around, I reckon you do — yes !" " And ho asks me— he— this roan of the feet and the daughter— asks me — De Ferrieres, buttoning his coat. "No!it ie a dream I" He walked stiffly to the corner where his portmanteau lay, lifted it, and, going to the outer door, a cut through the ship's side that communicated with the alley, unlocked it and flung it open to the night A thick mist like the breath of the ocean flowed into the room. "You ask me what I shall take to go," he said as he stood on the threshold. " I sholl take what you cannot give, mongieur, but what I would not keep if I stood her another moment. I take my honour, monsieur, and—l take my leave !" or a moment his grotesque figure was outlined in th" oponing, and then disappeared &h if he had dropped into an invisible ocean bolow. Stupefied and disconcerted at this complete success of his overtures, Abner Nott remained speechless, gazing at the vacant space until a cold influx of the mist recalled him. Then he rose and shuffled quickly to the door. "Hi! Ferrieres' Look yer— Say ! Wofe's your hurry, pardoner?" But there was no response. The thick mist, which hid the surrounding objects, seemed to deaden all sound also. After a moment's pause he closod the door, but did not lock it, and, retreating to the centre of bho room, remained blinking at the two 3andles and plucking some perplexing problem from bis beard. Suddonly an idea jeized him liosey ! Where was she ? Perhaps it bad been a preconcerted plan, md she had fled wiih him. Putting out the ights, he stumbled hurriedly through the Japsage to the gangway above. The cabin loor was open ; there was tho sound of to'icgh — Renehaw's and Rosey 'e. Mr Nott ielt relieved, but not unembarrassed He .vould have avoided his daughter's presence ;hat evening. But even while making this .'©solution with characteristic infelicity he Sundered into the room, Roeoy looked up .vith a slight start ; Renshaw's animated 'aoe was changed to its former expression )f inward discontent. '•You came in so like a ghost, father," aid Rosey, with a slight peevishness that ,vas new to her. " And I thought you were n town. Don't go, Mr RenHhaw."* But Mr Renshaw intimated that he had ilready trespassed upon Miss Nott's time, uid. that no doubt her father wanted to talk .vith her. To his surprise and annoyance, lowever, Mr Nott insisted on accompanying lim to his room, and, without heeding Elenshaw's cold " Good-night," entered and jlosed the door behind him. " P'raps," said Mr Nott, with a troubled iir, " you disremember that when you first icm hore you asked me if you could hoy ;hat 'er loft that the Frenchman had down itairs." "No, I don't remember it,' Kiid Kctithaw, almost rudely. " But," he added, ifter a pause, with the air of one obliged to •evive a stale and unpleasant memory, "if [ did, what about it?" "Nuthin', only that you kin hey it tonorrow, ez that 'ere Frenchman is movin' mt," responded Nott. "I thought you vas sorter keen about it when you first vem." "Umph ! We'll talk about it to-morrow." Something in the look of wearied perplexity vith which Mr Nott was beginning to regard his own vied apropos presonco, arrested :he young man's attention. "What's the •enson you didn't sell this old ship long igo. take a decent house in the town, and jring up your daughter like a lady ?" he isked with a pudden blunt good humour. 3ut even this implied blasphemy against ;he habitation he worshipped did not jrevent Mr Nott from his usual misconstruction of the question. "I reckon now Rosey'g got high-flown deas of livin' in a castle with ruins, eh ?" )e paid cunningly. " Haven't heard her say," returned Renshaw abruptly, "Goodnight." Firmlyconvinced that Rosey had been un ible to conceal from Mr Renshaw the inluence of her dreams of a constellated future with De Ferrierep, he regained the cabin. Satisfying himself that his daughter had retired, he sought his own couch. But not to 3leep. The figure of De Ferrieres standi' q in the ship side and melting into the outer darkness haunted him, and compelled him in dreams to ri.=e and follow him through the alleys and byways of the crowded city. Again, it was a part of his morbid suspicion that he now invested the absent man with a potential significance and an unknown power What deep-laid plans might he not form to possess himself of Rosey, of which he, Abner Nott, would be ignorant? Unchecked by the l'estraint of a father's roof, he would now give full license to his power. " Said he'd take his Honour with him," muttered Abner to himself in the dim watches of the night : "lookin'at that sayin' in its right light, it looks bad."

[ CHAPTER Y. The elaborately untruthful account which Mr Nbtt gave his daughtorof De Ferrieres's sudden doparturo was more fortunate than his usual equivocations. While it disappointed and slightly mortified her, it did not seem to her inconsistent with what she already knew of him. " Said his doctor had ordered him to quit town under an hour, owin' to a comin' attack of hay fever, and ho had a friend from furrin, parts waitin 1 him at the Springs, Rosey," exclaimed Nott, hesitating between his desire to avoid his daughter's eyes and his wish to observe her countenance. 4C Was he wox-se ?— I mean, did he look badly, father ?" asked Rosey, thoughtfully. "I reckon not exactly bad. Kinder looked ez if he mout be worse soon ef he didn't hump hisself." " Did you see him? — in his room ?" asked Rosey anxiously, Upon the answer to this simple question depended the future confidential relations of father and daughter. If her father had himself detected the means by which his lodger existed, she felt that her own obligations to secrecy had been removed. But Mr Nott's answer disposed of this vain hope. It was a response after his usual fashion to the question he imagined she artfully wished to ask, i,e , if he had discovered their rendezvous of the previous night. This it was part of his peculiar delicacy to ignore. Yet his reply showed that he was unconscious of the one miserable secret that he might have read easily. " I was there an hour or so — him and me alone— diseussin' trades. 1 reckon he's got a good thing outer that horsehair, for I see he's got in an invoice o' cushions. I've stored 'em all in the forrard bulkhead until he sends for 'em, ez Mr Renshaw hez taken the loft." But although Mr Renshaw had taken the loft, he did not Beem in haste to occupy it. He spent part of the morning in uneasily pacing his room, in occasional sallies into the street, from which he purposelessly returned, and once or twice in distant and furtive contemplation of Rosey at work in the galley. This last observation was not unnoticed by the astute Nott, who at once, conceiving that he was nourishing a secret and hopeless passion for Rosey, began to consider whether it was not his duty to warn the young man of her preoocupied affeotions. But Mr Renshaw's final disappearance obliged him to with hold his confidence till morning.

1 This time Mr Renshaw left the ship with i the evident determination of some settled purpose. He walked rapidly until he » reached the counting house of Mr Sleight, , when he was at once shown into a private , office. In a few moments Mr Sleight, a . brusque but passionlesß man, joined him. •'Well," said Sleight, closing the door , carefully. "What news?" , " None,' said Renphaw bluntly. "Look here, Sleight," he added turning to him suddenly. # " Ltt me out of this game. I " Does that mean you've found nothing ?" asked Sleight sarcastically. " It means that I haven't looked for anything, and that I don't intend to, without the full knowledge of that d d fool who owns the ship." '• You've changed your mind iince you wrote the letter," said Sleight, coolly, producing from a drawer a letter already known to the reader. Renshaw mechanicaily extended his hand to take it Mr Sleight dropped the letter back into the draw, which he quietly locked. This apparently simple act dyed Mr Renshaw's cheek with colour, but it vanished quickly, and with it any token of his previous embarrassment. He looked at Sleight with the air of a resolute man who had at lapt taken a disagreeable step, but was willing to stand by the consequences. "I have changed my mind," he said coolly. " I found out that it was one thing to go down as a skilled prospector might go examine a mine that was to be valued according to his report of the indications, but that it was entirely another thing to go and play the spy in a poor devil's house in order to buy something he didn't know he was selling and wouldn't sell if he did." " And something that the man 7ie bought of didn't think of selling; something 'he himself never paid for, and never expected to buy," sneered Sleight. " Something that we expect to buy from our knowledge of all this, and it is that which makes all the difference." " But you knew all this before." "I never saw it in this light before! I never thought of it until I was living there face to face with the old fool I was intending to over reach. I never was sure of it until this morning, when he actually turned out one of his lodgers that I might have the very room I required to play off our little game in comfortably. When he did that I made up my mind to drop the whole thing, and I'm here to do it," "And let somebody else take the responsibility — with the percentage — unless you've also felt it your duty to warn Nott, too," said Sleight, with a sneer. " You only dare say that to me, Sleight," said Renshaw quietly, " because you have in that drawer an equal evidence of my folly and my confidence ; but if you are wise you will not presume too far on either. Let us see how we stand. Through the yarn of a drunken captain and a mutinous sailor you become aware of an unclaimed shipment of treasure, concealed in an unknown ship that enteied this harbour. You are enabled through me to corroborate some facts and identify tho ship. You proposed to me, as a speculation, to identify the troapure if possible before you purchased the ship. I accepted the offer without consideration ; on consideration I now decline it, but without prejudice or loss to any ono but myself. As to your insinua tion, I need not remind you that my presence here to day refutes it. J would not require your permission to make a much better bargain with a good-natured fool like Nott than I could with you. Or, if I did not care for the business, I couldhavo warned the girl " "The girl— what girl?" Ren&haw bit hia lip, but answered boldly : "The old man's daughter— a poor girl whom this act would rob as well as her father." Sleight looked at his companion attentively. " You might have said so at first, and let up on this camp-meetin' exhortation. Well, then -admitting you've got the old man and the girl on the same string, and that you've played it pretty low down in the short time you've been there — I sup j pose, Dick Renshaw, I've got to see your) bluff. Well, how much is it? What's the: figure you and she have settled on ?" For an instant Mr Sleight was in physical danger. But before he had finished speaking Renshaw's quick sense of the ludicrous had so far overcome his first indignation as to enable him to even admire the perfect moral insensibility of his companion. As he arose and walked toward tho door, he half wondered that he had ever treated the affair seriously. With a smile he replied : " Far from bluffing, Sleight, I am throwing my cards on the table Consider that I've passed out. Let some other man take my hand. Rake down the pot if you like, old man, / leave for Sacramento to-night. Adieu ! When the door had closed behind him, Mr Sleight summoned his clerk. "Is that petition for grading Pontiac street roady ?" " I've seen the largest property holders, sir ; they're only waiting for you to sign first." Mr Sleight paused and then affixed his signature to the paper his clerk laid be fore him. • • Get the other names and send it up at once." " If Mr Nott doesn't sign, sir ?" "No matter. He will be assessed all the same." Mr Sleight took up his hat. "The Lascar seaman that was here the other day has been wanting to see you, sir. I said you were busy." Mr Sleight put down his hat. "Send him up." Nevertheless, Mr Sleight sat down and at once abstracted himself so completely as to be apparently in utter oblivion of the man who entered. He was lithe and Indian i looking, bearing in dress and manner the careless slouch without the easy frankness of tho sailor. " Well !" said Sleight without looking 1 up. {t I was only waitin' to know ef you had any news for me, boss ?" " News ?" echoed Sleight, as if absently ; " news of what?" "That matter of the Pontiac we talked about, boss," returned the Lascar with an uneasy servility in the whites of his teeth and eyes. "Oh,"saidSloight, "that's played out. It's a regular fraud. It's an old forecastle yarn, my man, that you can't reel off in the cabin." The sailor's face darkened. " The man who was looking into it has thrown the whole thing up, I tell you it's played out !" repeated Sleight, without raising his head, "It's true, boss -every word," said the Lascar, with an appealing insinuation that seemed to struggle hard with savag© earnestness. "You can swear me, boss; I wouldn't lie to a gentleman like you. Your man hasn't half looked, or else - it must be there, or " "That's just it," said Sleight slowly; " who's to know that your friends haven't been there already ? — that seems to have been your style." , " But no one knew it but me, until I told you. I swear to God. I ain't lying, boss, and I ain't drunk, Say— don't give it up, boss. That man of yours likely don't believo ifc, because he don't know anything about it. I do —l could find it. ' ' -

A silence followed. . Mr Sleight remained completely' absorbed in biff papers for some moments. Then glancing at the Lascar, he took bis pen, wrote a hurried note, folded it, addi eased it, and, holding it between his fingers, leaned back in his chair. ' • If you choose to take this note to my man he may give it another show. Mind I don't say that he, will. He's going to Sacramento to-night, but you could go down there and find him before he starts. He's got a room there, I believe. While you'ro waiting for him, you might keep your eyes open to satisfy yourself " '• Aye, aye, sir," said the sailor, eagerly endeavouring to catch the eye of his employer. But Mr sleight looked straight before him, and he turned to go. "The Sacramento boat goes at nine," said i Mr Sleight, quickly. This time their glances met, and the Lascar's eye glistened with subtle intelligence. The next moment he was gODe, and Mr Sleight again became absorbed in his papers. Meanwhile Renshaw was making his way back to the Pontiac with that lighthearted optimism that had characterised bis parting with Sleight. It was this quality of his nature, fostered perhaps by the easy civilisation in which he moved, that had originally drawn him into relations with the man he just quitted; a quality that had been troubled and darkened by those relations, yet when they were broken at once returned. It consequently did not occur to him that he had only selfishly compromised with the difficulty ; it seemed to him enough that he had withdrawn from a compact he thought dishonourable ; he was not called upon to betray his partner in that compact meiely to benefit others. He had been willing to incur suspicion and lobs to reinstate himself in his self-respect; morehecouldnot dowithonfcjustifying that suspicion. The view taken by Sleight was, after all, that which most business men would take ; which even the unbusiness like Nott would take, which the girl herself might be tempted to listen to. Clearly he could do nothing but abandon the Pontiac and her owner to the fate he could not in honour avert, And even that fate was problematical. It did not follow that the treasure was still concealed in the Pontiac, nor that Nott would be willing to sell her. Be would make some excuse to Nott— he smiled to think he would probably be classed in the long line of absconding tenants— he wrmldsay good-bye to Ko?ey and leave for Sacramento that night. He ascended the stairs to the gr.ngway with a freer breast that when he first enteied the ship. (To be, continued)