"Andre Norton - The Opal-Eyed Fan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Norton Andre)

Indies.
"However, a certain portion of those funds did not come from traitorous dealings with the enemy;
rather, they had been entrusted to him by his widowed moth-er, meant to be the marriage portion of his
sister and for her own support in her declining years.
"When he fled New York he left no accounting of these monies. It was my father and later my
brother Julian and I who supported my grandmother. We learned that Amos had established himself well in
the Bahamas where he built and crewed two wreckers. In time he married a widow and had one son. But
that son was lost at sea. Therefore, Amos had no legal heirs. He left his estate when he died to his widow,
a woman of prudence and frugality and, as some of the ladies of the islands, also holding shares in wrecking
ships. But in addition, she was also a very honest female.
"It was while she was dealing with her husband's estate that she came upon letters written by my
grandmother urging Amos to return her funds; letters which, incidentally, he had never answered. His
widow at once wrote to New York and offered to make up the sum in question. At that time I was our
representative in London and so out of touch. Julian, my grandmoth-er, and my Aunt Eleanor, all died within
two weeks of each other of yellow fever which struck hard that summer. I was summoned home but the
letter was de-layed in reaching me and it was some months before I found that from Amos' widow.
"At that time I was engrossed by the company af-fairs and, since the debt was owed to my
grandmother, I thanked Madam Rooke by letter but said that I con-sidered the debt discharged by the
deaths of those con-cerned. I did not think of this again for years.
"However, shortly before the fire which reduced our circumstances so greatly, I received word
from an at-torney in the islands that Madam Rooke, who had lived to a great age, was lately dead. And her
will had left all her extensive property to be equally divided between my grandmother's kin and certain
charities. The sum willed to us amounted to a sizable one.
"Thus I gathered the letters and papers in that case —" He made a slight gesture to the bedside
table where lay a small, locked portfolio. "Those prove the validity of our claim."
His face was near gray though he spoke clearly and with his usual deliberate spacing of words.
Now he paused and Shubal pushed past the girl to hold a small glass to his master's bluish lips. Uncle
Augustin sipped, then raised his head slowly once more. His eyes did not dismiss Persis. Rather there was
a fierce deter-mination in them which spread to his drawn face.
"You"—shallow gusts of hardly drawn breath punc-tuated his sentence—"must remember!"
"I will, Uncle Augustin."
Now his eyes closed and Shubal waved her back without speaking. The servant followed her to the door as if
he must make very sure she would go. But his attention was fixed on the man in the bed.
Persis returned to the chamber across the hall. So there had been a real reason for this voyage to the is-lands,
more than just the quest for the health that Uncle Augustin would never find again. She stood by the window which
looked down on the wharf.
There were no men busy there now, though boxes and bales remained. Perhaps their warehouse had been
filled. A bird with vividly colored wings and a harsh cry swept past, to be lost in the thick green rim-ming the pool and
the canal. Seaward, that smudge Lydia had named a ship was taking on more visible outlines.
But closer there was a craft making its way up the canal. And this was no ship's boat; rather a narrow,
battered looking canoe made of a single huge log hol-lowed out, in which sat a single paddler. It advanced at a
sluggish pace in spite of the efforts of the paddler who headed straight for a small wharf at the foot of the mound on
which the house stood. Catching hold of one of the stakes there, the paddler—now obviously a woman— scrambled
out, to stand erect, winding a twist of rope around the stake to anchor the strange vessel.
A fringed skirt of tanned hide flapped about her legs and a wide-brimmed hat woven of some reed or frond
covered her head, so that Persis, from this higher level, could see nothing of the newcomer's face. The strang-er
stooped to pick up a hide-wrapped bundle and, settling this on one bony hip, started to the house, climb-ing a series
of hardly noticeable notches in the hillside to disappear around the side of the outer wall.
The canoe bobbed lazily at the post. Farther out, the ship which had so excited Lydia was entering the
anchorage by the reef. Men gathered on the larger wharf, watching it. There was something about their attitude which