Mynheer Bartholomew Tulp lurked through a long week at Sandwich. In that week he sent me four letters and eachletter contained a fresh proposal. I sent a single reply: that every proposal must be hugely preposterous unless it went on all-fours with Greaves’ will and the agreement with me. He was seen on several occasions in the neighborhood of the house; once Jimmy perceived him looking in at the gate, and supposed that he meant to call; but the little man made off on finding himself observed.
At last, at the expiration of nine or ten days—and this brought us to a Monday—I received a letter from Mynheer Tulp. We were at dinner at the time; my uncle cried out:
“What does he say, Bill? Willing, perhaps, to spring another hundred pound?”
I read the letter aloud; it was well expressed, in good English. Mynheer said he had thought the matter over, and was prepared to settle with me on my own terms. He admitted that I had a right to the share which Van Laar would have received; that Greaves’ signature to the will indicated his wishes as to the disposal of his money, which, of course, he would have received as his share of the venture, had he lived. Would I permit him to call upon me?
I immediately dispatched Jimmy with an answer, and in half an hour’s time the little Dutchman was seated in my uncle’s parlor. He was submissive and, in his way, very apologetic. Yet, though he had come to confirm the terms of his own letter to me, midnight was striking before every point was settled. His rapacity was shark-like. It cost my uncle and me above an hour to make the little man agree to call the value of the dollar four shillings. He disputed long and shrilly over a small share that I claimed for the honest lad Jimmy. He opposed the repayment of the wages of the Whitby men and the Kanaka out of the common stock, as though he believed that my uncle would bear that charge! He was nearly leaving the house on the question of the sum due to Jarvie Files and his men for “running” the dollars. He insisted that my money and Greaves’ should bear a proportion of the loss of the three tons of silver stolen by Yan Bol and his crew. He grew furious when my uncle insisted upon charging him for storage and risk, and thrice inthatdiscussion arose to go.
But by midnight, as I have said, all was settled. He now asked leave to live in the house until he could remove his money to the brig, in which he proposed to sail to Amsterdam, taking with him for a crew the men of theSeamen’s Friend. My uncle told him he would be welcome, giving me at thesame time a wink of deep disgust at the motive of the old chap’s request. It took us several days to count the dollars, and all the while little Bartholomew Tulp sat looking on. What was left as his share, after deductions, I never heard; it came, I believe, near to fifty thousand pounds. When the division was made he went on board the brig; Jarvie Files and his men carried his chests to theBlack Watchin the dead of night, and when, next morning, I went down to the beach to look for the now familiar figure of the brig riding to her two anchors, her place was empty.
This, then, is the story of Greaves’ discovery, and of the part I played in it. Of Yan Bol and his men I heard nothing for eighteen months; I then got a letter from Captain Horsley, dated at Whitby. He had touched at Amsterdam Island, found no signs of Yan Bol and his party, then dug in the place I had indicated without finding the silver. There was no look of the earth having been turned up in that place. A gale of wind blew him off the island; then, a fortnight later, he spoke a ship bound to Sydney, New South Wales, and learnt from her that she had picked up a party of seamen sixty leagues eastward of Amsterdam Island; they were six men, three of them in a dying condition for want of water. He had no doubt, and neither had nor have I, that they were Yan Bol and his mates; but what had the wretches done with the three tons of dollars?
Did I, when we had exchanged the large sum of dollars into English money, did I procure the erection and endowment of a church in accordance with the wishes of Michael Greaves? I answer yes; most piously and anxiously did I fulfill my friend’s dying wish. Will I tell you the name of the church, and where it is situated? No; I have worshiped in it, but I will not tell you its name and where it is situated, because this book is a confession, and I am informed that if the descendants or inheritors of the Spanish consignees, or the owners of the dollars, learnt that a church had been built out of the money, they could and might advance a claim that would give all concerned in that church on this side great trouble.
One little memorial I erected at my own expense; it long stood in the garden of the house in which I dwelt for many years; need I tell you that it was a memorial to my well-beloved, faithful, deeply-mourned Galloon?