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Next to the door which opened into the hall was another, which I concluded led into a closet. There was no picture of me when I was a small child; and I wondered if Captain Boomsby had invented that fable on the spot. I was not willing to believe it.
There were two large and two small chambers in this attic, none of which appeared to be furnished. "It is in this room," said Captain Boomsby, leading me into the rear hall chamber. "It's a little grain dark in here." I saw that the window that looked out on the river-side of the house had been boarded up. He led the way into the room, and I followed him.
Then he told me he lived over the saloon, and insisted that I should go up and see the "old woman." I was a little curious to see Mrs. Boomsby, and I followed him up-stairs. I had not seen Mrs. Boomsby for several years; and though I had no reason to expect anything but abuse from her, my curiosity induced me to see her.
"I thought we were going rather high up; but I supposed Captain Boomsby knew where to find you," I replied, smiling as sweetly as though there were no snakes in the Land of Flowers. "But it seems that your husband lured me up there to make a prisoner of me. He locked me into the little room in the rear attic, which he had fitted up for me by screwing boards over the window."
Boomsby, placing her arms akimbo, and looking at me with the utmost ferocity, so that between her and the snake I found there was little choice. "What are you a-doin' in my house?" "Getting out of it, Mrs. Boomsby," I replied, with the good-nature I had been nursing up-stairs for several minutes. I wondered whether she knew anything about the snake.
Cornwood, glancing at me, as though he expected me to approve this position, which I certainly did, though I said nothing. "I will bet five dollars agin three the feller gits out in less than three days, Mr. Woodcorn," persisted Captain Boomsby. I could not see what the captain was driving at, unless it was to vex the Floridian by miscalling his name. I had known him to do the same thing before.
Both he and the lawyer had become hard drinkers, and in the Captain's attempt to wreck me, he had sunk the Islander and drowned his employer. I judged that this would be the end of the conspiracy; and so it was, so far as my cousin Owen and the solicitor were concerned, but not on the part of Captain Boomsby.
I went into one of these rooms, and seated myself in a chair. Mrs. Boomsby was on the floor below, standing at the head of the stairs, calling for her husband. It has taken me a long time to record the incidents of my escape so far, and my reflections upon them; but when I looked at my watch I found that only eight minutes had elapsed since I consulted it before, at half past five.
Carrington had bought the sister yacht of the Sylvania, the Islander, which was to take part in the conspiracy against me, and in which the solicitor had followed the Sylvania to Florida. He had employed Captain Parker Boomsby, the down-east skipper, then settled in Michigan, to command her, and to assist in carrying out his plan.
It contained Captain Boomsby and Griffin Leeds. Though I had tried to make myself proof against harboring any suspicions, I thought the long delay of Cornwood was explained. He had been very busy with legal business that morning. Did it relate to the affairs of Griffin Leeds and my ancient enemy?
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