The scoundrel had stolen it all without carrying out one of theconditions on which we had sold him the secret. From that day Ilived only for vengeance. I thought of it by day and I nursed it bynight. It became an overpowering, absorbing passion with me. Icared nothing for the law—nothing for the gallows. To escape, totrack down Sholto, to have my hand upon his throat—that wasmy one thought. Even the Agra treasure had come to be a smallerthing in my mind than the slaying of Sholto.
“Well, I have set my mind on many things in this life, and neverone which I did not carry out. But it was weary years before mytime came. I have told you that I had picked up something ofmedicine. One day when Dr. Somerton was down with a fever alittle Andaman Islander was picked up by a convict-gang in thewoods. He was sick to death and had gone to a lonely place to die.
I took him in hand, though he was as venomous as a young snake,and after a couple of months I got him all right and able to walk.
He took a kind of fancy to me then, and would hardly go back tohis woods, but was always hanging about my hut. I learned a littleof his lingo from him, and this made him all the fonder of me.
“Tonga—for that was his name—was a fine boatman and owneda big, roomy canoe of his own. When I found that he was devotedto me and would do anything to serve me, I saw my chance ofescape. I talked it over with him. He was to bring his boat roundon a certain night to an old wharf which was never guarded, andthere he was to pick me up. I gave him directions to have severalgourds of water and a lot of yams, cocoanuts, and sweet potatoes.
“He was stanch and true, was little Tonga. No man ever hada more faithful mate. At the night named he had his boat at thewharf. As it chanced, however, there was one of the convict-guarddown there—a vile Pathan who had never missed a chance ofinsulting and injuring me. I had always vowed vengeance, and nowI had my chance. It was as if fate had placed him in my way that Imight pay my debt before I left the island. He stood on the bankwith his back to me, and his carbine on his shoulder. I lookedabout for a stone to beat out his brains with, but none could I see.
“Then a queer thought came into my head and showed mewhere I could lay my hand on a weapon. I sat down in the darknessand unstrapped my wooden leg. With three long hops I was onhim. He put his carbine to his shoulder, but I struck him full, andknocked the whole front of his skull in. You can see the split inthe wood now where I hit him. We both went down together, forI could not keep my balance; but when I got up I found him stilllying quiet enough. I made for the boat, and in an hour we werewell out at sea. Tonga had brought all his earthly possessions withhim, his arms and his gods. Among other things, he had a longbamboo spear, and some Andaman cocoa nut-matting, with whichI made a sort of sail. For ten days we were beating about, trustingto luck, and on the eleventh we were picked up by a trader whichwas going from Singapore to Jiddah with a cargo of Malay pilgrims.
They were a rum crowd, and Tonga and I soon managed to settledown among them. They had one very good quality: they let youalone and asked no questions.
“Well, if I were to tell you all the adventures that my little chumand I went through, you would not thank me, for I would haveyou here until the sun was shining. Here and there we driftedabout the world, something always turning up to keep us fromLondon. All the time, however, I never lost sight of my purpose.
I would dream of Sholto at night. A hundred times I have killedhim in my sleep. At last, however, some three or four years ago,we found ourselves in England. I had no great difficulty in findingwhere Sholto lived, and I set to work to discover whether he hadrealized on the treasure, on if he still had it. I made friends withsomeone who could help me—I name no names, for I don’t wantto get anyone else in a hole—and I soon found that he still had thejewels. Then I tried to get at him in many ways; but he was prettysly and had always two prize-fighters, besides his sons and hiskhitmutgar, on guard over him.
“One day, however, I got word that he was dying. I hurried atonce to the garden, mad that he should slip out of my clutcheslike that, and, looking through the window, I saw him lying in hisbed, with his sons on each side of him. I’d have come through andtaken my chance with the three of them, only even as I looked athim his jaw dropped, and I knew that he was gone. I got into hisroom that same night, though, and I searched his papers to seeif there was any record of where he had hidden our jewels. Therewas not a line, however, so I came away, bitter and savage as a mancould be. Before I left I bethought me that if I ever met my Sikhfriends again it would be a satisfaction to know that I had leftsome mark of our hatred; so I scrawled down the sign of the fourof us, as it had been on the chart, and I pinned it on his bosom. Itwas too much that he should be taken to the grave without sometoken from the men whom he had robbed and befooled.