The White Wolf and Other Fireside TalesQuiller-Couch, Arthur
Science
The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales
Quiller-Couch, Arthur
Short stories, English
the name of a man, MacGuire, in the Visitors' Book of a small inn at
Penleven. We left Penleven at dusk that evening, and held steadily
up the coast until darkness. Then we turned the yacht's head, and
ran straight across for Morlaix; but the weather continuing fine for
a good fortnight (our first night at sea was the roughest in all
this time), we changed our minds, cleared Ushant, and held right
across for Vigo; thence, after re-victualling, we cruised slowly
down the coast and through the Straits, finally reaching Malaga.
There we stayed and had the yacht lengthened. My husband had sold
his small property before ever we came to Port William, and had
managed to invest the whole under the name of Carlingford.
There was no difficulty about letters of credit. At each port on the
way we had shown the Wasp's papers, and used the name of
Carlingford; and at Lisbon we read in an English newspaper about the
supposed capsizing of the _Queen of Sheba_. Still, we had not only
to persuade the officials at the various ports that our boat was the
_Wasp_. We knew that our enemies were harder to delude, and our
next step was to make her as unlike the _Wasp_ or the _Queen of
Sheba_ as possible. This we did by lengthening her and altering her
rig. But it proved useless, as I had always feared it would.
The day after we sailed from Malaga, a Spanish-speaking seaman, whom
we had hired there as extra hand, came aft as if to speak to my
husband (who stood at the wheel), and, halting a pace or two from
him, lifted a revolver, called him by name, and shot him dead.
Before he could turn, my son had knocked him senseless, and in
another minute had tumbled him overboard. We buried my husband
in the sea, next day. We held on, we two alone, past Gibraltar--
I steering and my son handling all the sails--and ran up for Cadiz.
There we made deposition of our losses, inventing a story to account
for them, and my son took the train for Paris, for we knew that our
enemies had tracked the yacht, and there would be no escape for him
if he clung to her. I waited for six days, and then engaged a crew
and worked the yacht back to F--. I have never since set eyes on my
son; but he is alive, and his hiding is known to myself and to one
man only--a member of the brotherhood, who surprised the secret.
To keep that man silent I spent all my remaining money; to quiet him
I had to sell the yacht; and now that money, too, is gone, and I am
dying in a workhouse. God help my son now! I deceived you, and yet
I think I did you no great wrong. The yacht I sold you was my own,
and she was worth the money. The figures on the beam were cut there
by my husband before we reached Vigo, to make the yacht correspond
with the _Wasp's_ certificate. If I have wronged you, I implore
your pardon.--Yours truly,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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