"Well now, Ethel," Cecil Mitford went on as gaily as he could, "that
brings me up to the second point. I want you to sell out these wretched
New Zealands, so as to take the money with me to invest on good
mortgages in Jamaica. My experience in West Indian matters--after three
years in the Department--will enable me to lay it out for you at nine
per cent.--nine per cent., observe, Ethel,--on absolute security of
landed property. Planters want money to improve their estates, and can't
get it at less than that rate. Your three hundred would bring you in
twenty-seven pounds, Ethel; twenty-seven pounds is a lot of money!" What could poor Ethel do? In his plausible, affectionate manner--and all
for her own good, too--Cecil talked her over quickly between love and
business experience, coaxing kisses and nine per cent. interest,
endearing names and knowledge of West Indian affairs, till helpless
little Ethel willingly promised to give up her poor little three
hundred, and even arranged to meet Cecil secretly on Thursday at the
Bank of England, about Colonial Office dinner-hour, to effect the
transfer on her own account, without saying a single word about it to
Aunt Emily or Mr. Cartwright. Cecil's conscience--for he _had_ a
conscience, though he did his best to stifle it--gave him a bitter
twinge every now and then, as one question after another drove him time
after time into a fresh bit of deceit; but he tried to smile and smile
and be a villain as unconcernedly and lightly as possible. Once only
towards the end of the evening, when everything was settled, and Cecil
had talked about his passage, and the important business with which he
was entrusted, at full length, a gleam of suspicion seemed to flash for
a single second across poor Ethel's deluded little brains. Jamaica--promotion--three hundred pounds--it was all so sudden and so
connected; could Cecil himself be trying to deceive her, and using her
money for his wild treasure hunt? The doubt was horrible, degrading,
unworthy of her or him; and yet somehow for a single moment she could
not help half-unconsciously entertaining it. "Cecil," she said, hesitating, and looking into the very depths of his
truthful blue eyes; "you're not concealing anything from me, are you? It's not some journey connected with John Cann?" Cecil coughed and cleared his throat uneasily, but by a great effort he
kept his truthful blue eyes still fixed steadily on hers. (He would have
given the world if he might have turned them away, but that would have
been to throw up the game incontinently.) "My darling Ethel," he said
evasively, "how on earth could the Colonial Office have anything to do
with John Cann?" "Answer me 'yes' or 'no,' Cecil. Do please answer me 'yes' or 'no.'" Cecil kept his eyes still fixed immovably on hers, and without a
moment's hesitation answered quickly "no." It was an awful wrench, and
his lips could hardly frame the horrid falsehood, but for Ethel's sake
he answered "no." "Then I know I can trust you, Cecil," she said, laying her head for
forgiveness on his shoulder. "Oh, how wrong it was of me to doubt you
for a second!" Cecil sighed uneasily, and kissed her white forehead without a single
word. "After all," he thought to himself, as he walked back to his lonely
lodgings late that evening, "I need never tell her anything about it. I
can pretend, when I've actually got John Cann's treasure, that I came
across the clue accidently while I was in Jamaica; and I can lay out
three hundred of it there in mortgages; and she need never know a single
word about my innocent little deception. But indeed in the pride and
delight of so much money, all our own, she'll probably never think at
all of her poor little paltry three hundred." III. It was an awfully long time, that eighteen days at sea, on the Royal
Mail Steamship _Don_, bound for Kingston, Jamaica, with John Cann's
secret for ever on one's mind, and nothing to do all day, by way of
outlet for one's burning energy, but to look, hour after hour, at the
monotonous face of the seething water. But at last the journey was over;
and before Cecil Mitford had been twenty-four hours at Date Tree Hall,
the chief hotel in Kingston, he had already hired a boat and sailed
across the baking hot harbour to Port Royal, to look in the dreary,
sandy cemetery for any sign or token of John Cann's grave. An old grey-haired negro, digging at a fresh grave, had charge of the
cemetery, and to him Cecil Mitford at once addressed himself, to find
out whether any tombstone about the place bore the name of John Cann. The old man turned the name over carefully in his stolid brains, and
then shook his heavy grey head with a decided negative. "Massa John
Cann, sah," he said dubiously, "Massa John Cann; it don't nobody buried
here by de name ob Massa John Cann. I sartin, sah, becase I's sexton in
dis here cemetry dese fifty year, an' I know de grabe ob ebbery buckra
gentleman dat ebber buried here since I fuss came." Cecil Mitford tossed his head angrily. "Since _you_ first came, my good
man," he said with deep contempt. "Since you first came! Why, John Cann
was buried here ages and ages before you yourself were ever born or
thought of." The old negro looked up at him inquiringly. There is nothing a negro
hates like contempt; and he answered back with a disdainful tone, "Den I
can find out if him ebber was buried here at all, as well as you, sah. We has register here, we don't ignorant heathen. I has register in de
church ob every pusson dat ebber buried in dis cemetry from de berry
beginnin--from de year ob de great earthquake itself. What year dis
Massa John Cann him die, now? What year him die?" Cecil pricked up his ears at the mention of the register, and answered
eagerly, "In the year 1669." The old negro sat down quietly on a flat tomb, and answered with a smile
of malicious triumph, "Den you is ignorant know-nuffin pusson for a
buckra gentleman, for true, sah, if you tink you will find him grabe in
dis here cemetry. Don't you nebber read your history book, dat all Port
Royal drowned in de great earthquake ob de year 1692? We has register
here for ebbery year, from de year 1692 downward; but de grabes, and de
cemetry, and de register, from de year 1692 upward, him all swallowed up
entirely in de great earthquake, bress de Lord!" Cecil Mitford felt the earth shivering beneath him at that moment, as
verily as the Port Royal folk had felt it shiver in 1692. He clutched at
the headstone to keep him from falling, and sat down hazily on the flat
tomb, beside the grey-headed old negro, like one unmanned and utterly
disheartened. It was all only too true. With his intimate knowledge of
John Cann's life, and of West Indian affairs generally, how on earth
could he ever have overlooked it? John Cann's grave lay buried five
fathoms deep, no doubt, under the blue waters of the Caribbean.