at them. There is no a priori probability about it. A strange enigma
is man!"
"Some one calls him a soul concealed in an animal," I suggested.
"Winwood Reade is good upon the subject," said Holmes. "He remarks
that, while the individual man is an insoluble puzzle, in the
aggregate he becomes a mathematical certainty. You can, for example,
never foretell what any one man will do, but you can say with
precision what an average number will be up to. Individuals vary, but
percentages remain constant. So says the statistician. But do I see a
handkerchief? Surely there is a white flutter over yonder."
"Yes, it is your boy," I cried. "I can see him plainly."
"And there is the Aurora," exclaimed Holmes, "and going like the
devil! Full speed ahead, engineer. Make after that launch with the
yellow light. By heaven, I shall never forgive myself if she proves
to have the heels of us!"
She had slipped unseen through the yard-entrance and passed behind
two or three small craft, so that she had fairly got her speed up
before we saw her. Now she was flying down the stream, near in to the
shore, going at a tremendous rate. Jones looked gravely at her and
shook his head.
"She is very fast," he said. "I doubt if we shall catch her."
"We must catch her!" cried Holmes, between his teeth. "Heap it on,
stokers! Make her do all she can! If we burn the boat we must have
them!"
We were fairly after her now. The furnaces roared, and the powerful
engines whizzed and clanked, like a great metallic heart. Her sharp,
steep prow cut through the river-water and sent two rolling waves to
right and to left of us. With every throb of the engines we sprang
and quivered like a living thing. One great yellow lantern in our
bows threw a long, flickering funnel of light in front of us. Right
ahead a dark blur upon the water showed where the Aurora lay, and the
swirl of white foam behind her spoke of the pace at which she was
going. We flashed past barges, steamers, merchant-vessels, in and
out, behind this one and round the other. Voices hailed us out of the
darkness, but still the Aurora thundered on, and still we followed
close upon her track.
"Pile it on, men, pile it on!" cried Holmes, looking down into the
engine-room, while the fierce glow from below beat upon his eager,
aquiline face. "Get every pound of steam you can."
"I think we gain a little," said Jones, with his eyes on thea Aurora.
"I am sure of it," said I. "We shall be up with her in a very few
minutes."
At that moment, however, as our evil fate would have it, a tug with
three barges in tow blundered in between us. It was only by putting
our helm hard down that we avoided a collision, and before we could
round them and recover our way the Aurora had gained a good two
hundred yards. She was still, however, well in view, and the murky
uncertain twilight was setting into a clear starlit night. Our
boilers were strained to their utmost, and the frail shell vibrated
and creaked with the fierce energy which was driving us along. We had
shot through the Pool, past the West India Docks, down the long
Deptford Reach, and up again after rounding the Isle of Dogs. The
dull blur in front of us resolved itself now clearly enough into the
dainty Aurora. Jones turned our search-light upon her, so that we
could plainly see the figures upon her deck. One man sat by the
stern, with something black between his knees over which he stooped.
Beside him lay a dark mass which looked like a Newfoundland dog. The
boy held the tiller, while against the red glare of the furnace I
could see old Smith, stripped to the waist, and shovelling coals for
dear life. They may have had some doubt at first as to whether we
were really pursuing them, but now as we followed every winding and
turning which they took there could no longer be any question about
it. At Greenwich we were about three hundred paces behind them. At
Blackwall we could not have been more than two hundred and fifty. I
have coursed many creatures in many countries during my checkered
career, but never did sport give me such a wild thrill as this mad,
flying man-hunt down the Thames. Steadily we drew in upon them, yard
by yard. In the silence of the night we could hear the panting and
clanking of their machinery. The man in the stern still crouched upon
the deck, and his arms were moving as though he were busy, while
every now and then he would look up and measure with a glance the
distance which still separated us. Nearer we came and nearer. Jones
yelled to them to stop. We were not more than four boat's lengths
behind them, both boats flying at a tremendous pace. It was a clear
reach of the river, with Barking Level upon one side and the
melancholy Plumstead Marshes upon the other. At our hail the man in
the stern sprang up from the deck and shook his two clinched fists at
us, cursing the while in a high, cracked voice. He was a good-sized,
powerful man, and as he stood poising himself with legs astride I
could see that from the thigh downwards there was but a wooden stump
upon the right side. At the sound of his strident, angry cries there
was movement in the huddled bundle upon the deck. It straightened
itself into a little black man--the smallest I have ever seen--with a
great, misshapen head and a shock of tangled, dishevelled hair.
Holmes had already drawn his revolver, and I whipped out mine at the
sight of this savage, distorted creature. He was wrapped in some sort
of dark ulster or blanket, which left only his face exposed; but that
face was enough to give a man a sleepless night. Never have I seen
features so deeply marked with all bestiality and cruelty. His small
eyes glowed and burned with a sombre light, and his thick lips were
writhed back from his teeth, which grinned and chattered at us with a
half animal fury.
"Fire if he raises his hand," said Holmes, quietly. We were within a
boat's-length by this time, and almost within touch of our quarry. I
can see the two of them now as they stood, the white man with his
legs far apart, shrieking out curses, and the unhallowed dwarf with
his hideous face, and his strong yellow teeth gnashing at us in the
light of our lantern.
It was well that we had so clear a view of him. Even as we looked he
plucked out from under his covering a short, round piece of wood,
like a school-ruler, and clapped it to his lips. Our pistols rang out
together. He whirled round, threw up his arms, and with a kind of
choking cough fell sideways into the stream. I caught one glimpse of
his venomous, menacing eyes amid the white swirl of the waters. At
the same moment the wooden-legged man threw himself upon the rudder
and put it hard down, so that his boat made straight in for the
southern bank, while we shot past her stern, only clearing her by a
few feet. We were round after her in an instant, but she was already
nearly at the bank. It was a wild and desolate place, where the moon
glimmered upon a wide expanse of marsh-land, with pools of stagnant
water and beds of decaying vegetation. The launch with a dull thud
ran up upon the mud-bank, with her bow in the air and her stern flush
with the water. The fugitive sprang out, but his stump instantly sank
its whole length into the sodden soil. In vain he struggled and
writhed. Not one step could he possibly take either forwards or
backwards. He yelled in impotent rage, and kicked frantically into
the mud with his other foot, but his struggles only bored his wooden
pin the deeper into the sticky bank. When we brought our launch
alongside he was so firmly anchored that it was only by throwing the
end of a rope over his shoulders that we were able to haul him out,
and to drag him, like some evil fish, over our side. The two Smiths,
father and son, sat sullenly in their launch, but came aboard meekly
enough when commanded. The Aurora herself we hauled off and made fast
to our stern. A solid iron chest of Indian workmanship stood upon the
deck. This, there could be no question, was the same that had
contained the ill-omened treasure of the Sholtos. There was no key,
but it was of considerable weight, so we transferred it carefully to
our own little cabin. As we steamed slowly up-stream again, we
flashed our search-light in every direction, but there was no sign of
the Islander. Somewhere in the dark ooze at the bottom of the Thames
lie the bones of that strange visitor to our shores.
"See here," said Holmes, pointing to the wooden hatchway. "We were
hardly quick enough with our pistols." There, sure enough, just
behind where we had been standing, stuck one of those murderous darts
which we knew so well. It must have whizzed between us at the instant
that we fired. Holmes smiled at it and shrugged his shoulders in his
easy fashion, but I confess that it turned me sick to think of the
horrible death which had passed so close to us that night.
CHAPTER XI
The Great Agra Treasure
Our captive sat in the cabin opposite to the iron box which he had
done so much and waited so long to gain. He was a sunburned,
reckless-eyed fellow, with a net-work of lines and wrinkles all over
his mahogany features, which told of a hard, open-air life. There was
a singular prominence about his bearded chin which marked a man who
was not to be easily turned from his purpose. His age may have been
fifty or thereabouts, for his black, curly hair was thickly shot with
gray. His face in repose was not an unpleasing one, though his heavy
brows and aggressive chin gave him, as I had lately seen, a terrible
expression when moved to anger. He sat now with his handcuffed hands
upon his lap, and his head sunk upon his breast, while he looked with
his keen, twinkling eyes at the box which had been the cause of his
ill-doings. It seemed to me that there was more sorrow than anger in
his rigid and contained countenance. Once he looked up at me with a
gleam of something like humor in his eyes.
"Well, Jonathan Small," said Holmes, lighting a cigar, "I am sorry
that it has come to this."
"And so am I, sir," he answered, frankly. "I don't believe that I can
swing over the job. I give you my word on the book that I never
raised hand against Mr. Sholto. It was that little hell-hound Tonga
who shot one of his cursed darts into him. I had no part in it, sir.
I was as grieved as if it had been my blood-relation. I welted the
little devil with the slack end of the rope for it, but it was done,
and I could not undo it again."
"Have a cigar," said Holmes; "and you had best take a pull out of my
flask, for you are very wet. How could you expect so small and weak a
man as this black fellow to overpower Mr. Sholto and hold him while
you were climbing the rope?"
"You seem to know as much about it as if you were there, sir. The
truth is that I hoped to find the room clear. I knew the habits of
the house pretty well, and it was the time when Mr. Sholto usually
went down to his supper. I shall make no secret of the business. The
best defence that I can make is just the simple truth. Now, if it had
been the old major I would have swung for him with a light heart. I
would have thought no more of knifing him than of smoking this cigar.
But it's cursed hard that I should be lagged over this young Sholto,
with whom I had no quarrel whatever."
"You are under the charge of Mr. Athelney Jones, of Scotland Yard. He
is going to bring you up to my rooms, and I shall ask you for a true
account of the matter. You must make a clean breast of it, for if you
do I hope that I may be of use to you. I think I can prove that the
poison acts so quickly that the man was dead before ever you reached
the room."
"That he was, sir. I never got such a turn in my life as when I saw
him grinning at me with his head on his shoulder as I climbed through
the window. It fairly shook me, sir. I'd have half killed Tonga for
it if he had not scrambled off. That was how he came to leave his
club, and some of his darts too, as he tells me, which I dare say
helped to put you on our track; though how you kept on it is more
than I can tell. I don't feel no malice against you for it. But it
does seem a queer thing," he added, with a bitter smile, "that I who
have a fair claim to nigh upon half a million of money should spend
the first half of my life building a breakwater in the Andamans, and
am like to spend the other half digging drains at Dartmoor. It was an
evil day for me when first I clapped eyes upon the merchant Achmet
and had to do with the Agra treasure, which never brought anything
but a curse yet upon the man who owned it. To him it brought murder,
to Major Sholto it brought fear and guilt, to me it has meant slavery
for life."
At this moment Athelney Jones thrust his broad face and heavy
shoulders into the tiny cabin. "Quite a family party," he remarked.
"I think I shall have a pull at that flask, Holmes. Well, I think we
