CHAPTER XXIX--EASTWARD HO! FOR MERRIE ENGLAND

Captain Roland St. Clair, as he was called by his men, was busy along with Dick and Bill in superintending the sending-off of all heavy baggage down-stream, when a man came up and saluted him.

"Well, Harris?"

"The prisoner Peter desires to speak with you, sir, in the presence of two witnesses. He wished me to request you to bring paper, pen, and ink. It is his desire that you should take his deposition."

"Deposition, Harris? But the man is not dying."

"Well, perhaps not, sir. I only tell you what he says."

"I will be in his cell in less than twenty minutes, Harris."

"Dick," said Roland, at the appointed time, "there is some mystery here. Come with me, and you also, Bill."

"What I have to say must be said briefly and quickly," said Peter, sitting up. "I will not give myself the pain," he added, "to think very much about the past. It is all too dark and horrible. But I make this confession, unasked for and being still in possession of all my faculties and reasoning power."

He spoke very slowly, and Dick wrote down the confession as he made it.

"I am guilty, gentlemen. Dare I say 'with extenuating circumstances'? That, however, will be for you to consider. As the matter stands I do not beg for my life, but rather that you should deal with me as I deserve to be treated.

"Death, believe me, gentlemen, is in my case preferable to life. But listen and judge for yourselves, and if parts of my story need confirmation, behold yonder is Kaloomah, and he it was whom I hired to carry your adopted sister away, where in all human probability she could never more be heard of again. Have you got all that down?"

"I have," said Dick.

"But," said Roland, "what reason had you to take so terrible a revenge on those who never harmed you, if revenge indeed it was?"

"It was not revenge. What I did, I did for greed of gold. Listen.

"I was happy in England, and had I only been content, I might now have been married and in comfort, but I fell, and am now the heart-broken villain you see before you.

"You know the will your uncle made, Mr. St. Clair?"

"I have only heard of it."

"It was I who copied it for my master, the wretched solicitor.

"I stole that copy and re-copied it, and sold it to the only man whom it could benefit, and that was your Uncle John."

"My Uncle John? He who sent you out to my poor, dear father?"

"The same. But let me hurry on. The real will is still in possession of the solicitor, and it gives all the estates of Burnley Hall, in Cornwall, to John, in the event of Peggy's death."

"I begin to see," said Dick.

"My reward was to have been great, if I managed the affair properly. I have never had it, and, alas! I need it not now.

"But," he continued, "your villainous uncle was too great a coward to have Peggy murdered. His last words to me on board the steamer before I sailed were: 'Remember--not one single drop of blood shed.'

"I might have done worse than even I did, but these were the words that instigated my vile plot, of which I now most heartily repent. All I had to do was to get apparent proof of Peggy's death."

"And my Uncle John now holds the estates of Burnley Hall? Is that so?"

"He does. The solicitor could not help but produce the will, on hearing of Peggy's capture and death.

"That, then, is my story, gentlemen. Before Heaven I swear it is all true. It is, moreover, my deposition, for I already feel the cold shadow of death creeping over me. Yes, I will sign it."

He did so.

"I makee sign too," said Kaloomah.

"That is the man whom I hired to do the deed," said Peter again.

And Kaloomah made his mark.

"I feel easier now, gentlemen" continued Peter. "But leave me a while. I would sleep."

----

Kaloomah had all a savage's love for the horrible, and he was merely an interested spectator of the tragedy that followed.

Between him and Peter lie two poison-tipped arrows.

At first Peter looks at them like one dazed. Then he glances upwards at the glorious sunshine streaming in through the opening.

Nearer and nearer he now creeps to those arrows!

Nearer and nearer!

Now he positions them with his manacled hands.

Then strikes.

In half an hour's time, when Burly Bill entered the cave to inform the prisoners that it was time for them to be on the road, he started back in horror.

Peter, fearfully contorted, lay on the floor of the cave, dead.

----

Some weeks after this the party found themselves once more near to the banks of the rapid Madeira.

Everything had gone well with those captains and peons whom they had left behind, and now every preparation was made to descend the stream with all possible speed, consonant with safety.

They had taken Kaloomah thus far, lest he should return and bring another army to attack them.

And now a kind of drum-head court-martial was held on this wild chief, at which even Charlie and Benee were present.

"I really don't see," said Roland, "what good has come of saddling ourselves with a savage."

"No, I agree with you, Roll," said Dick. "Peter has gone to his account, and really this Kaloomah has been more sinned against than he has sinned."

"What would you advise, Bill?"

"Why, I'd give him a rousing kick and let him go."

"And you Benee?"

"I go for hangee he."

"Charlie, what would you do?"

Charlie was smiling and rubbing his hands; it was evident he had formulated some plan that satisfied himself.

"I tie dat savage to one biggee stake all by de ribber, den watch de 'gator come, chumpee, chumpee he."

But a more merciful plan was adopted. Kaloomah evidently expected death, but when Roland himself cut his bonds and pointed to the west, the savage gave just one wild whoop and yell, and next moment he had disappeared in the forest.

----

Were I beginning a story instead of ending one, I should not be able to resist the temptation to describe that voyage down the beautiful Madeira.

It must suffice to say that it was all one long and happy picnic.

Just one grief, however, had been Peggy's at the start. Poor Dixie, the pony, must be left behind.

She kissed his forehead as she bade him good-bye, and her face was wet with tears as she turned her back to her favourite.

Roland did what he could to comfort her.

"Dixie will soon be as happy as any horse can be," he said. "He will find companions, and will live a long, long time in the wilds of this beautiful land. So you must not grieve."

----

There are times when people in this world are so inexpressibly happy that they cannot wish evil to happen even to their greatest enemies. They feel that they would like every creature, every being on earth, to be happy also.

Surely it is with some such spirit that angels and saints in heaven are imbued.

Had you been on board the steamship _Panama_ as she was swiftly ploughing her way through the wide blue sea that separates Old England from South America, from Para and the mouths of the mighty Amazon, you could not have been otherwise than struck with the evident contentment and happiness of a group of saloon passengers there. Whether walking the quarter-deck, or seated on chairs under the awning, or early in the morning surrounding their own special little breakfast-table, pleasure beamed in every eye, joy in every face.

Who were they? Listen and I shall tell you.

There was Roland, Dick, Roland's sweet-faced mother, Peggy; and last, but certainly not least in size at all events, there was dark-skinned jolly-looking Burly Bill himself.

But Burly Bill did not obtrude his company too much on the younger folks. He was fond of walking on the bridge and talking to the officer on duty. Fond, too, of blowing a cloud from his lips as they dallied with his great meerschaum. Fond of telling a good story, but fonder still of listening to one, and often chuckling over it till he appeared quite apoplectic.

There was someone else on board who must be mentioned. And this was Dixie, the pony!

Did he remain on the banks of the Madeira? Not he. For by some means or other he found his way--so marvellous is the homing instinct in animals--back to the old plantation long before Roland and his little army, and was the first to run out to meet Peggy and get a kiss on his soft warm snout.

Need I add that Brawn was one of the passengers? And a happy dog he was, and always ready for a lark when the sailors chose to throw a belaying-pin for him.

Dick had had a grief to face when he returned.

His uncle was dead. So he determined--as did Roland with his plantation--to sell off and return to England, for a time at all events.

The two estates are now worked by a "Company Ltd.", but Jake Solomons is head overseer.

Benee, who has married his "moon-dream", little Weenah, is second in command, and right merry of a morning is the boom and the song of the old buzz-saw.

----

So happy, then, were Roland and Dick and Peggy that they concluded they would not be too hard on wicked Uncle John.

This wicked Uncle John went into retirement after the arrival of our heroes and heroine. He might have been sent into retirement of quite a different sort if Roland had cared to press matters.

Peggy got all her own again. She is now Mrs. Temple, and Dick and she are beloved by all the tenantry--yes, and by all the county gentry and farmer folks round and round.

I had almost forgotten to say a last word about Beeboo. She is Mrs. Temple's chief servant, and a right happy body is Beeboo, and Burly Billy is estate manager.

Now, if any of my readers want a special treat, let him or her try to get an invitation to spend Christmas at Burnley Old Hall.