The Rover's Secret: A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba Read online

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  The Rover's SecretA Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba

  By Harry Collingwood________________________________________________________________________It was a bit puzzling to to work out who or what the Rover was, and whatthe secret was. The word Rover is not mentioned once in the body-textof the book, and the word secret only three or four times. However,eventually I sussed it out. The Rover is a pirate who figures enough inthe book for one to be aware he is there. He is mortally wounded, andin the last chapter he tells his secret before he dies, thus providingan explanation for several other puzzling things that we have been told,or that happened, in the book.

  On the other hand I was not too happy with the overall style of thebook, which is too florid and long-winded. Practically every sentencecould be greatly shortened without loss, and it is sometimes an amusingexercise to rest from reading, and then try to re-phrase the currentparagraph.

  Apart from those things, the book is written in a style much like that ofKingston. This is typical of Collingwood, but one sometimes thinks he isa bit plagiaristic. That doesn't stop it from being quite an enjoyablebook. There is some evidence that there are some missing commas in thetext as I have presented it, but I do not think that this will at allimpede the flow of the story as it unfolds.________________________________________________________________________THE ROVER'S SECRETA TALE OF THE PIRATE CAYS AND LAGOONS OF CUBA

  BY HARRY COLLINGWOOD

  CHAPTER ONE.

  MY CHILDHOOD.

  My father--Cuthbert Lascelles--was the great painter who, under apseudonym which I need not mention here, was a few years ago well knownin the world of art, and whose works are now to be found enshrined insome of the noblest public and private collections both at home andabroad.

  He was a tall and singularly handsome man; with clear grey eyes, and astern resolute-looking mouth shadowed by a heavy moustache which, likehis short curly hair and carefully trimmed beard, was of a pale goldentint.

  My mother died in giving me birth; and this, together with the fact thatshe was a native of Italy, was all I, for some years, knew concerningher.

  One of the earliest impressions made upon my infant mind--for I cannotrecall the time when I was free from it--was that my parents sufferedgreat unhappiness during the latter part of their short married life;unhappiness resulting from some terrible mistake on the part of one orthe other of them; which mistake was never explained and rectified--ifexplanation and rectification were indeed possible--during my mother'slifetime.

  Having received this impression at so very early an age, I cannot, ofcourse, say with certainty whence I derived it; but I am inclined toattribute it chiefly to the singularity of my father's conduct towardmyself.

  I was his only child.

  He was a man to whom solitude and retirement appeared to be the chiefessentials of existence. Though living in London, he very rarelymingled in society, yet I have since heard that he always met with amost cordial welcome when he did so--and it was seldom indeed that hisstudio doors unfolded to admit anyone but their master. If he went intothe country, as of course was often the case, in search of subjects, henever by any chance happened to be going in the same direction as any ofhis brethren of the brush; his destination was invariably some wildspot, unfrequented--possibly even unknown--alike by painter and tourist.And there--if undisturbed--he would remain, diligently working all dayin the open air during favourable weather; and, when the elements wereunpropitious for work, taking long walks over solitary heaths anddesolate mountain sides, or along the lonely shore. And when the firstsnows of winter came, reminding him that it was time to turn his facehomeward once more, he would pack up his paraphernalia and return totown, laden with studies of skies and seas, of barren moorland, rockycrag, and foaming mountain torrent which provoked alike the envy and theadmiration of his brother artists.

  It will naturally be supposed that, to a man of such solitary habits asthese, the society of his only child would be an unspeakable comfort.But, with my father, this did not appear to be by any means the case.He never took me out of town with him on his annual pilgrimage to thecountry; and, when he was at home, it often happened that I did not seehim, face to face, for weeks together. As a consequence of thispeculiar arrangement, almost the whole of the time which I spent indoorswas passed in the nursery, where also my meals were served, and whereinmy only companion was Mary, the nursemaid.

  The only exceptions to this isolated state of existence were those rareoccasions when my father, without the slightest warning, and apparentlywith as little reason, used to send for me to visit him in his studio.It was during these interviews that his peculiar treatment of me becamemost noticeable. As a general rule, when--after a vigorous cleansing ofmy face and hands and a change of my raiment had been effected by thenursemaid--I was introduced into the studio, my father would ensconce mein a roomy old easy-chair by the fire; provide me with a picture-book ofsome kind wherewith to amuse myself; and then take no further notice ofme. This, however, seemed to depend to some extent upon the greetingwhich I received from him, and that proved to be a tolerably accurateindex of the humour which happened to possess him at the moment.Sometimes the greeting would consist of a cold shake of the hand and anequally cold "I hope you are well, boy," accompanied by a single keenglance which seemed at once to take in every detail of my person andclothing. Sometimes the shake of the hand would be somewhat warmer, theaccompanying remark being, perhaps, "I am glad to see you looking sowell, my boy." And occasionally--but very rarely--I was agreeablysurprised to find myself received with an affectionate embrace andkiss--which I always somewhat timidly returned--and the words, "Lionel,my son, how are you?"

  When the greeting reached this stage of positive warmth, it usuallyhappened that, instead of being consigned at once to the arm-chair andthe picture-book, I was lifted to my father's knee, when, laying asidepalette and brushes, he would proceed to ask me all sorts of questions,such as, What had I been doing lately; where had I been, and what had Iseen worthy of notice; did I want any new toys? and so on; enticing meout of my reserve until he had coaxed me into talking freely with him.On these especial occasions he had a curious habit of wheeling round infront of us a large mirror which constituted one of his studio"properties," and into this, whilst talking to me, he would intentlygaze at his own reflected image, and mine, laying his cheek beside mineso as to bring both our faces to the same level, and directing me alsoto look into the mirror. Sometimes this curious inspection terminatedsatisfactorily; in which case, after perhaps an hour's chat on his knee,I was tenderly placed in the easy-chair, in such a position that myfather could see me without his work being materially interfered with;our conversation was maintained with unflagging spirit on both sides;and the day was brought to a happy close by our dining together, andperhaps going to the theatre or a concert afterwards. There wereoccasions, however, when this pleasant state of affairs did not obtain--when the ordeal of the mirror did not terminate so satisfactorily. Itoccasionally happened that, whilst gazing at my father's reflectedfeatures, I observed a stern and sombre expression settling like a heavythunder-cloud upon them; and this always sufficed to speedily reduce meto silence, however garrulous I might before have been. The paternalgaze would gradually grow more intense and searching; the thunder-cloudwould lower more threateningly; and unintelligible mutterings wouldescape from between the fiercely clenched firm white teeth. And,finally, I would either be placed--as in the last-mentioned instance--where my father could look at me whilst at work--and where he _did_fr
equently look at me with appalling sternness--or I was at oncedismissed with a short and sharp "Run away, boy; I am busy."

  Looking back upon the first eight years of my existence, andcontemplating them by the light of my now matured knowledge, I aminclined to regard them as quite an unique experience of child-life; atall events I would fain hope that but few children have suffered sokeenly as I have from the lack of paternal love. And yet I cannot saythat I was absolutely unhappy, except upon and for a day or two afterthose chilling dismissals from my father's presence to which I havebriefly referred; the _suffering_, although it existed, had by longusage become a thing to which I had grown accustomed, and it consistedchiefly in a yearning after those endearments and evidences of affectionwhich I instinctively felt were my due. The conviction that _myfather_--the one to whom my childish heart naturally turned for sympathyin all my little joys and sorrows--regarded me coldly--for hisdemonstrations of affection were indeed few and far between--exercised asubduing and repressive influence upon me from which, even now, I havenot wholly recovered, and which will probably continue to affect me tothe latest hour of my life. What made my position decidedly worse wasthat my father had, so far, not deemed it necessary to send me toschool; and I had, therefore, no companions of my own age, none of _any_age, in fact, except Mary, the nursemaid aforementioned, and MrsWilson, the housekeeper; the latter--good motherly body--so farcompassionating the state of utter ignorance in which I was growing upthat, in an erratic, unmethodical sort of way, she occasionally devotedhalf an hour or so of her time of an evening to the task of forwardingmy education. In consequence of this state of things I often found itdifficult to effect a satisfactory disposal of the time left to liesomewhat heavily on my hands.

  I have said that Mrs Wilson was kind enough to undertake my education;and very faithfully and to the best of her ability, poor soul, shecarried on the task. But nature had evidently intended the old lady tobe a housekeeper, and not an instructress of youth; for whilst sheperformed the duties of the former post in a manner which leftabsolutely nothing to be desired, it must be confessed that in her self-imposed task of schoolmistress she failed most lamentably. Not throughignorance, however, by any means. She was fairly well educated, having"seen better days," so she was possessed of a sufficiency of knowledgefor her purpose had she but known how to impart it. Unfortunately,however, for me she did not; she was entirely destitute of that tactwhich is the great secret of successful instruction; she had not thefaintest conception of the desirability of investing my studies with thesmallest particle of interest; and they were in consequence dry as thedriest of dry bones and unattractive in the extreme. She never dreamedthat it might be advantageous to explain or point out the ultimatepurpose of my lessons to me, or to illustrate them by those appositeremarks which are often found to be of such material assistance to theyouthful student; if I succeeded in repeating them perfectly "out ofbook" the good woman was quite satisfied; she never attempted toascertain whether I understood them or not.

  Under such circumstances it is probable that I should have derivedlittle or no advantage from my studies had not my preceptress possesseda valuable ally in my own inclinations. Writing I was fond of; readingI had an especial desire to master, for reasons which will shortlybecome apparent; but arithmetic I at first found difficult, and utterlydetested--until I had mastered its rules, after which I soon reached apoint where the whole became clear as the noonday light; and then I fellunder the magical influence of that fascination which figures for someminds is found to possess. But geography was my favourite study. Therewas an old terrestrial globe in the nursery, the use of which my fatherhad taught me in one of his rare genial moments; and over this globe Iused to stand for hours, with my geography in my hand and a gazetteer ona chair by my side, finding out the positions of the various places asthey occurred in the books.

  It sometimes happened that Mrs Wilson went out to spend the eveningwith a married daughter who resided somewhere within visiting distance;and, when this was the case, my studies were of course interrupted, andother means of employing my time had to be found. Thanks, chiefly, tothe fact that these occasions afforded Mary, my particular attendant, anopportunity of escape from the somewhat dismal lonesomeness of thenursery, these evenings were very frequently spent in the servants'hall, where I had an opportunity of enjoying the conversation of thehousemaid Jane, the cook, and Tim, the presiding genius of the knife-board and boot-brushes. I always greatly enjoyed these visits to thelower regions, for two reasons; the first of which was that they weresurreptitious, and much caution was needed, or supposed to be needed, inorder that my journey down-stairs might be accomplished without"master's" knowledge; the remaining reason for my enjoyment being that Igenerally heard something which interested me. Whether the interestexcited was or was not of a healthy character the reader shall judge.

  The cook, of course, reigned supreme in the servants' hall, the otheroccupants taking their cue from her, and regulating their tastes andoccupations in accordance with hers. Now this woman--an obese, red-armed, and red-visaged person of about forty years of age--was possessedby a morbid and consuming curiosity concerning all those horrors andcriminal mysteries which appear from time to time in the public prints;and the more horrible they were, the greater was her interest in them.The evening, after all the work was done and there was opportunity togive her whole attention to the subject, was the time selected by herfor the satisfaction of this curiosity; and it thus happened veryfrequently that, when I made my appearance among the servants, they weredeep in the discussion of some murder, or mysterious disappearance, orkindred matter. If the item under discussion happened to be fresh, theboy Tim was delegated to search the newspaper and read therefrom everyparagraph bearing upon it, the remainder of the party listening intentlyand open-mouthed as they sat in a semicircle before the blazing fire.And if the item happened to be so stale as to have passed out of thenotice of the papers, the cook would recapitulate for our benefit itsleading features, together with any similar events or singularcoincidences connected with the case which might occur to her _memory_at the moment. From the discussion of murders to the relation of ghoststories is a natural and easy transition, and here Jane, the housemaid,shone pre-eminent. She would sit there and discourse by the hour oflonely and deserted houses, long silent galleries, down which mistyshapes had been seen to glide in the pallid moonlight, gaunt and ruinouschambers, the wainscot of which rattled, and the tattered tapestry ofwhich swayed and rustled mysteriously; gloomy passages through whichunearthly sighs were audibly wafted; dismal cellars, with never-openeddoors, from whose profoundest recesses came at dead of night the muffledsound of shrieks and groans and clanking chains; "of calling shapes, andbeckoning shadows dire, and airy tongues that syllable men's names onsands, and shores, and desert wildernesses," until not one of the party,excepting myself, dared move or look round for fear of seeing some dreadpresence, some shapeless dweller upon the threshold, some horribleapparition, the sight of which, Medusa-like, should blast them intostone. Not infrequently the situation was rendered additionallyharrowing by the cook, who would suddenly interrupt the narrative, sendan icy thrill down our spines, and cause the unhappy Tim's scalp tobristle even more than usual, by exclaiming in a low startling whisper:

  "_Hark_! didn't you hear something move in the passage just then?"

  Whereupon Jane and Mary would spring to their feet, and, with pallidfaces, starting eyes, and blanched lips, cling convulsively to eachother, convinced that at last their unspoken fears were about to bedreadfully realised.

  It will naturally be supposed that these _seances_ would have adreadfully trying effect upon my infantile nerves; but, strangelyenough, they did not. I never looked beneath my cot with theexpectation of discovering a midnight assassin; for, in the first place,the outer doors of the house were always kept so carefully closed that Idid not see how such an individual could well get in; and, in the secondplace, admitting, for argument's sake, the possibility of his effecti
ngan entrance, I did not for a moment believe he would give himself thewholly unnecessary trouble of murdering a little boy, or girl either,for that matter. Then, as to the ghosts, though it never occurred to meto doubt their existence, I entirely failed to understand why peopleshould be afraid of them. I felt that, in regarding these beings asobjects of dread and apprehension, the housemaid, the cook, and in facteverybody who took this view of them, entirely misunderstood them, andwere doing the poor shadows a most grievous injustice. My ownexperience of ghosts led me to the conclusion that, so far from theirbeing inimical to mankind, they were distinctly benign. There was oneghost in particular to whose visitations I used to look forward with thegreatest delight; and I was never so happy as when I awoke in themorning with the vague remembrance that, at some time during the silentwatches of the past night, I had become conscious of a sweet andgracious presence beside my cot, bending over me with eyes which lookedunutterable love into mine, and with lips which mingled kisses oftenderest affection with softly-breathed blessings upon my infant head.At first I used to mention these visitations to Mary, my nurse, but Isoon forbore to do so, noticing that she always looked uncomfortablystartled for a moment or two afterwards, and generally dismissed thesubject somewhat hurriedly by remarking:

  "Ah, poor lamb! you've been dreaming about your mother."

  Which remark annoyed me, for I felt convinced that so realistic anexperience could not possibly result from a mere dream.

  It sometimes happened that there were no tragedies or other horrors inthe newspapers sufficiently piquant to tempt the cook's intellectualpalate; and in the absence of these, if it happened also to be Jane's"evening out," Mary would occasionally produce a well-thumbed copy ofthe _Arabian Nights_, or some old volume of fairy tales, from which sheread aloud.

  How I enjoyed those evenings with the old Eastern romancist! How Irevelled in the imaginary delights and wonders of fairydom! Of course Ipictured myself the hero of every story, the truth of the mostoutrageous of which it never occurred to me to doubt. Sitting at Mary'sfeet, on a low stool before the fire, with the old cat blinking andpurring with drowsy satisfaction upon my knee, I used to gazeabstractedly at the glowing coals, now thinking myself the prince in"Cinderella," now the happy owner of "Puss in Boots," and now theadventurous Sindbad. There was one story, however--I quite forget itstitle--which, in strong contrast with the others, instead of affordingme gratification, was a source of keen annoyance and vexation to mewhenever I heard it. It related to a boy who on one occasion had thegood fortune to meet, in the depths of the forest, a little old man inred cap and green jerkin--a gnome or fairy, of course--who with theutmost good-nature offered to gratify any single wish that boy mightchoose to express. Here was a glorious chance, the opportunity of alifetime! The boy's first thought was for ginger-bread, but before thethought had time to clothe itself in words the vision of a drum andtrumpet flashed across his mind. He was about to express a wish forthese martial instruments, and a real sword, when it occurred to himthat the fairies were quite equal to the task of providing gifts ofinfinitely greater value and splendour than even these coveted articles.And then that unfortunate boy completely lost his head; his brainbecame muddled with the endless variety of things which he found herequired; and he took so long a time to make up his mind that, when, indesperation, he finally did so, the unwelcome discovery was made thathis fairy friend, disgusted at the delay and vacillation, had vanishedwithout bestowing upon him so much as even one poor ginger-breadelephant. It was that boy's first and last opportunity, and he lost it.He never again met a fairy, though he wandered through the forest, dayafter day, week after week, and year after year, until he became an oldman, dying at last in a state of abject poverty.

  The moral of this story was obvious even to my juvenile mind. Itplainly pointed to the necessity for being prepared to take the fullestadvantage of every opportunity, whenever it might present itself; and Iwas resolved that, if ever I encountered a fairy, he should find mefully prepared to tax his generosity to its utmost limit. And,forthwith, I began to ask myself what was the most desirable thing atall likely to be within a fairy's power of bestowal. At this point I,for the first time, began to realise the difficulties of the situationin which the unhappy boy of the story found himself. I thought ofseveral things; but none of them came quite up to my idea of a gift suchas would do full honour and justice to a fairy's power of giving; theutmost I could imagine was a real ship full of real sailors, wherein Imight roam the seas and perform wonderful voyages like Sindbad; and, inmy efforts to achieve a still higher flight of imagination, I foundmyself so completely at a loss that I was fain to turn to Mary forcounsel. Accordingly, as I was being escorted by that damsel upstairsto bed one night, I broached the subject by saying:

  "Mary, supposing you were to meet a fairy, what would you ask him togive you?"

  "Lor'! Master Lionel, I dun know," she replied. "That's a question Ishouldn't like to answer just off-hand; I should want to think it over agood bit. I should read a lot of books, and find out what was the bestthing as was to be had."

  "What sort of books?" I asked.

  "Oh! any sort," was the reply; "books such as them down-stairs in yourpa's lib'ry; them's downright _beautiful_ books--your pa's--full of allsorts of wonderful things such as you never heard tell of."

  This reply afforded me food for a considerable amount of profoundreflection before I went to sleep that night; the result of which wasthat on the following morning, as soon as I had taken my breakfast, Idescended to the "lib'ry," opened the doors of one of the book-cases,and dragged down upon my curly pate the most bulky volume I could reach.With the expenditure of a considerable amount of labour I conveyed itto the nursery, and, flinging it and myself upon the floor, opened ithap-hazard, feeling sure that, in a book of such imposing dimensions, Ishould find something valuable wherever I might open it. It was anEnglish work of some kind, I remember; but, alas for my aspirations! itmight almost as well have been Greek. I was equal, just then, to themastery of words of two syllables, but no more; and the result was that,though I occasionally caught a glimpse of the meaning of a sentence hereand there, the subject matter of the book, as a whole, remained aprofound mystery to me. My want of knowledge was at once made mostpainfully apparent to myself; I discovered that I had a very great dealto learn before the treasures of wisdom by which I was surrounded couldbe made available; and I forthwith bent all my energies to the task ofperfecting myself in the art of reading as a first and indispensablestep.