The Popular Magazine/Volume 72/Number 1/The Crusader's Casket/Chapter 11
CHAPTER XI.
SPALATO, of that new but ancient country, Jugo-Slavia, is, and since the time when the Romans ruled the world has been, a great old city. Its ancient stone quays have known many ships, from slave-driven galleys to spreading sail, and from sail to steam. Many boats have rubbed their bows against its broad landing steps, and many feet have balanced themselves from boat to shore, but none more eagerly than those which stepped thereon in the early-forenoon hours of the day following the flight of the steam tramp Adventure from Venetian waters. Loungers in front of the long row of ancient buildings facing the aged water front, and loungers who sat beneath the trees, indolently stared at the landing party. First came a gray-haired old man in the unmistakable garb of a Venetian gondolier who growled and held the prow of the boat hard to the water-washed stones. Then came one who helped ashore a quietly smiling, but somewhat embarrassed girl, and then a rugged man, broad shouldered, who said to the two oarsmen, “You can go back aboard, or stay here, whichever suits you best. But be here in a couple of hours from now, to take us off. And if we're not back in a couple of hours, stand by till we come, understand?”
Barton had given his orders. His men, who may have surmised that in the future they were to obey him as master of the tramp Adventure said, “Aye, aye, sir,” and watched the shore party depart.
Any one who walks along the water front of Spalato, bounded on one side by the waters of the Adriatic and on the other by the gray old buildings, knows that there is a certain narrow street leading back toward the hills and that if one follows it there is an ancient church, bent as if its years had told upon its physical uprightness, in whose weather-beaten belfry hang mellow bells.
It was there that the feud of Rocky Crossing, Kentucky, came to an end when a Harnway and a Powell came together as one. They signed that agreement on a somewhat soiled register of marriage wherein many others with strange names had witnessed the greatest of life's compacts.
But it was not until they were again aboard the Adventure whose prow was turned back from the bay and toward the rocky point behind which lay the spreading cement mills, that the feudists stood in the captain's suite alone. There had been some mutual embarrassments, and secret considerations, and much happiness when they entered there together and closed the door. To Captain Jimmy the main cabin looked squalid now, as if despite all its restrained elegance of fitting and thought it was unworthy of its new occupant. To the new occupant it seemed perfect. She reveled in the thought that it was a home afloat of which she was part owner, coming to timid but certain possession. She stood for a moment in silence, surveying it, for it did not yet seem that all this was hers, and that but a night before she had stood there feeling insecure, uncertain, indignant, and afraid of plot. She saw it all with a new understanding, the round of bent windows looking astern over sea and land, the window seats beneath with comfortable cushioned couches, the pots of flowers, the piano, the bookcases, the curios picked up from many lands, the deep rugs from Eastern ports, and the white-enameled doors leading to the tiny dining room, the sleeping cabins, and the bathroom with its quaint tiles and porcelain and silver fittings that would not have disgraced a luxurious yacht. This was Jimmy's home. And she had been brought into it because he had forgotten the feud and because he loved her. She turned toward him, feeling that he was still standing behind her with his back against the door and enjoying her content. But then she saw that his eyes were fixed thoughtfully in another direction. She turned again and discovered the Crusader's box that still stood, aloof, upon the top of the closed piano, its dull golden sides agleam with the light through the opened ports astern. She walked across the room and lifted it in her hands, and faced him.
“Jimmy!” she said, and held it toward him as if to surrender it for all time.
He tried to avoid the significance of her surrender.
“By the way,” he said, without meeting her eyes, “I know how to open that thing! Uncle Lem showed me the secret. There's nothing inside the box after all, but—it's yours, now, so you ought to know how it's worked. Here—let me show you.”
He took it from her hands and with an enforced gayety to hide feelings too deep and profound for expression pressed one of the golden scrolls.
“You slide this thing to one side, then you slide this one on the end, and then you do the same with this—and there you are. You can open it now. Try it and see.”
She took the box from his hands and tested the lid. It opened bravely.
“Why, you said it was empty! It isn't. There's a letter in it,” she exclaimed holding it toward him, and he leaned forward and stared.
“There wasn't anything in it the last time I opened it,” he mumbled. “See what it is. It's yours, now, you know.”
She took from the box the folded paper, put the casket back on the piano and there was a moment's wait while she unfolded their find. This is what she read, while Jimmy followed, over her shoulder:
If you have read this far you are doubtless mystified by what I have written, so I shall now explain.
First, you had not been in Venice more than two days when I saw you, recognized you, and surmised that you had come with determination to try to possess yourself of that casket, which, you may remember, you rather heatedly vowed in my presence to “get some day if you lived long enough.” At that time you were such a fiery little girl that I somewhat enjoyed exasperating you just to hear what you might say, and I was tempted on that very afternoon to send you the casket with my compliments for your fearlessness.
Hence, when I saw you in Venice, I was again amused and curious to know how you would make your attempt. It was easy to employ a man to watch over your movements. I was actually standing behind the hangings in what is known as the “throne room end” of my salon when you and your ardent young fellow conspirator, the amusing Pietro Sordillo, came to look for it.
Somewhat to my surprise, on the very next day, it was reported to me by my retained observer that a young man named Ware had arrived in the port, and apparently under false pretense of being nothing but a tourist rather than the owner and master of the ship Adventure, was constantly tagging around at your very pretty and nimble heels. And in days following my observer was driven to the conclusion that my nephew's attentions were very sincere. This was almost proven so by the conversation between you and my nephew one night in the public gardens, which my faithful observer heard from the shrubbery immediately behind where you sat. When your young man Pietro began to loosen the walls of my palace by night, it was difficult for me to restrain myself; but when my nephew Jimmy visited me, declined my hospitality, and then very honorably favored me with a warning and an open declaration of war, I was having the most amusing time I have ever known in Venice. And when enough was learned to expose the full details of the plot against my property, or yours—we'll not quarrel more over that insignificant point, my dear—my amusement reached an apex. I, too, laid plans for your reception. I had but one fear, which was that a certain old bulldog of a gondolier who had attached himself to my nephew and whose name is, if I remember, Tomaso Something-or-another, would upset everything. My man Giuseppe began to find it extremely difficult to watch all of you because he could scarcely be in three or four places at once, and his chief instructions were to keep an eye on you.
However, on the night of the robbery, I hope to be behind the curtains. To save you the necessity of damaging my beautiful cabinet, which I prize, I shall leave it unlocked. I appreciate the difficulties you may have in getting an object of art so well known out of Italy, and have decided to assist you not only to escape with it, but at the same time give my nephew an opportunity of showing what stuff he is made of. If my plans succeed you will be driven to take refuge on the Adventure—not by the police, for the simple reason that no police boats will be present. The launches which pursue you, also the gondolas, will be employed by me with instructions to herd you and your party to the Adventure and to prevent you from landing anywhere else.
I have forged a note to my nephew's skipper so that there should be no delay in your departure once you and he are aboard. It is but logical that he, closely pursued, and seeing that sole avenue of escape open, will take it. The hour of the robbery I can merely conjecture.
The few young women I have intimately known are never happy without clothes, personal possessions, gewgaws and such, and I want you to be happy. So I have sent to your hotel, had your bill paid, and your belongings packed and delivered aboard the ship. I earnestly hope that nothing proves missing, and that you will not suffer too much inconvenience. Likewise I apologize for my intrusion, which has for its sole intent your personal comfort.
I have but three doubts about the success of my plans at the time this is written; the first that something may prevent you and my nephew from securing the Crusader's Casket; the second that you may lose it in your flight and fail to ever read this letter, thus robbing me of much of my enjoyment, and the third, the most serious of all, that you will not sufficiently appreciate my nephew to marry him. As far as he is concerned, if he doesn't appreciate you sufficiently to do his utmost toward that happy consummation he is blind, stupid, and I shall forever disown him. A man of his age who doesn't properly appreciate you is too much of an ass to be called a Harnway.
On the other hand, if, as I hope he will, and trust he has, besought you in marriage, I urge you, my dear Miss Powell, if such urgence is at all necessary, that you give the boy a chance. He is a very fine young man from all I know of him and all I have heard of him. I surmise that he is anything but a pauper; but not even the financial side of the affair need stand in the way, for I do now make a bargain and an agreement for your consideration which is this:
That if you, Miss Tania Powell, and my nephew, James Ware, do marry and will, after such honeymoon as you may choose, return to Venice and make your home with me, I shall constitute you and him, jointly, heirs to all I possess upon my demise which, in the natural course of events, cannot be long delayed.
I could wish a legal change of name, but upon that I do not insist, owing to your perhaps natural prejudice against the name of Harnway which has for so long and so unfortunately been disliked by any Powell. But it is a very old man's natural desire that his name should somehow be continued. It might possibly be compounded to Harnway-Powell, or—I'll make the last concession for proof that all my prejudices are done and that the detested and deplorable feud is at an end—he might even legally change the name to Powell-Harnway because I appreciate the Powells as admirable, and honorable, and fearless enemies and a very fine old family. I leave all this to your kindly consideration, in the earnest hope that you will find a way to make one concession to a very old man, who regrets a past feud, and who could find a last and greatest happiness in having you and all your glorious youth by his side in his last years. Youth, Miss Powell, is a very, very beautiful thing and reaches a noble perfection when joined with love. This conjunction I deem the best of human attainments. If you can find your way to love my nephew 1 shall feel that life has nothing more to offer, and I, too, shall love you, and eagerly long for your coming and your companionship. In any event the malice is dead and the feud of the Crusader's Casket at an end. And—God bless you, little girl! To me, whatever may come, you will always be wonderful! Sincerely yours,
Lemuel Harnway.
Jimmy saw that her brave young eyes were flooded with tears and held out his hands in that great longing to shield and comfort which is ever companioned with love. She came to them and, clinging to him, cried generously, “Oh, Jim! Jim, I never thought he was like that! We must go back to him. He wants us. He needs us. And you can change the name to anything you like—anything that will please him. I don't care now.”
For a full minute she rested there, his kindly hands comforting her until the generous little tempest was subdued, and then, as if ashamed of her weakness she released herself and found her wisp of handkerchief. She turned from him, stopped as if fascinated by something and then moved across the wide cabin space to where the Crusader's box rested, open, upon the piano. It gleamed mockingly in its dull colors of gold as if cynically challenging them to find anything worth while in their brief lives when it had seen so many scores of generations quickly come and briefly pass.
“Jimmy,” she said, gesturing toward it, “you can have that thing. It's bad luck. I don't want any of it.”
“Neither do I,” he declared soberly, as if he too was superstitious.
“Then”—she paused thoughtfully—“we're going back to Venice, aren't we? Couldn't we give it back to Mr. Harnway?”
“But he doesn't want it.”
She took the casket in her hands, leaned her elbows on the top of the piano and for a minute stared out of the open porthole nearest to her side while Jimmy stood admiring the picture she made and studying the changing expressions of her face. He saw it suddenly brighten as if she had solved a problem, and now she looked at him, seeking consent.
“Then suppose, when we return to Venice, we give it to Pietro. Would that do?”
“I suppose it would,” he agreed, and then added with a smile, “But he, being a poet, an antiquary, and a patriot, will probably give it back to his only permanent love—Venice.”
And time proved his judgment; for Pietro did!