Chapter Fourteen.Plot and Counterplot.This secret conversation between Joe and myself—secret by reason of the intense darkness of the night, and by the precautions I had deemed it expedient to take, at an early stage of the conversation, to conceal my precise whereabouts from any prying eyes among the starboard watch—at first produced within me a feeling of the keenest uneasiness and anxiety. For Joe’s revelation as to the discovery by the late steward of my secret relating to the concealed treasure furnished me with what had previously been lacking, namely,a motivefor that secret plotting of the existence of which Joe was so firmly convinced. The story to which I had that night listened left no room for doubt in my mind that my own want of caution and the late steward’s inquisitive propensities had placed within the knowledge of the latter the two important facts that I possessed the secret of a concealed treasure, and that it was my intention, on leaving Sydney, to proceed in search of it. Moreover, it was clear enough that the fellow had no sooner acquired this knowledge than he concocted a plan for the eventual acquisition of the treasure, and made some effort to secure the assistance of the crew in the carrying out of this plan, whatever it might happen to have been. Failing in this, might he not, out of sheer malice, have communicated the secret to some one else—our present cook, for instance—and instigated the man to take some such steps as himself had contemplated? Such a proceeding would at once account satisfactorily for the curious fact that I had succeeded in obtaining a crew when no other shipmaster within the port could do so. The only weak element of such a supposition consisted in my inability to reconcile myself to the belief that such a man as our late steward would ever, under any provocation, be weak enough to part with a secret that might, even under the most unlikely combination of circumstances and in the most distant future, possibly be of some advantage to himself. Yet this man, Martin, whose life I had saved, and who had impressed me as being a thoroughly honest, straightforward, trustworthy fellow, roundly asserted that something of a secret and mysterious character was going on among the newly shipped men—something from which he, on account of his assumed integrity, had been quietly yet consistently excluded; and he had heard the word “treasure” mentioned by these presumable conspirators. Then I argued with myself that, after all, when one came to reflect upon it, the exclusive ways of these ex-gold-miners and the mere mention of the word “treasure” seemed rather slender threads from which to weave so portentous a suspicion as that which Joe’s communication had suggested. For aught that I knew, the late steward’s discourses upon the subject of the treasure might have been of such a character as to suggest to the minds of his hearers an absurdly exaggerated idea of its value, leaving upon honest Joe’s mind the impression that it must be fabulously rich, and altogether the kind of thing to obtain possession of which men would hesitate at no crime, however monstrous. And, having had experience of one attempt to gain possession of it by means of treachery, was it not natural that the simple fellow, discovering, or believing that he had discovered, something in the nature of a secret understanding among his shipmates, should at once leap to the conclusion that it was nothing less than a second attempt upon the treasure that was being planned? As to the cook’s inquiry whether Joe would not rather be a rich man than be obliged to follow the sea for the remainder of his life, I thought nothing of that; sailors—like everybody else—are possessed of a rooted conviction that wealth is the panacea of all evils. By the time that I had reached this point in my mental argument it was eight bells, and, Forbes coming on deck to relieve me, I went to my cabin more than half convinced that Joe had, after all, discovered a mare’s nest; and having thus argued myself into a more comfortable frame of mind, I lay down and slept soundly until I was called by the steward at my usual hour of rising.I will do Joe the justice to say that, having settled in his mind the part that he would play in the drama that he believed was evolving itself on board the barque, he thenceforth played it to the life, and with a skill so consummate as to deceive the most suspicious. He assumed the rôle of a man who, if let alone, would be willing enough to do his duty honestly, and to the best of his ability, but who could not and would not tolerate the smallest measure of injustice. And he gave himself all the airs of an aggrieved person—of one who has been harshly treated for a trivial fault; his whole manner was the very impersonation of sullen resentment, and the careless, slovenly way in which he performed his duties was a constant source of provocation to me, even though I knew—or thought I knew—that it was all assumed. So exasperating was he that sometimes I even doubted whether his behaviour really was assumption—whether, after all, I had not been deceived in the man; whether it was not rather his former good behaviour that was assumed, while his present delinquencies were the result of an outbreak of irrepressible evil in him. There were even times when I asked myself whether he might not be a ringleader in the very plot he professed to be so anxious to discover, and whether his anxiety to enlighten me might not be assumed for the purpose of blinding and misleading me the more effectually. Never in all my life had I witnessed so thorough and radical a change in any one as seemed to have come over Joe Martin. But a quiet word or two with him, or a glance into his honest eyes when no one was near enough at hand to read their expression, always sufficed to reassure me as to his absolute fidelity. Since it was possible for him to make me doubt him, despite the many evidences he had afforded me of his honesty, it is not to be wondered at that Sir Edgar and Lady Emily were completely deceived by him; and often did they, in the comparative privacy of the saloon, deplore Joe’s lamentable fall from his original virtuous condition. On such occasions I always assumed a tone of righteous indignation and severity, giving as free vent as possible to the very real annoyance that the fellow’s pranks frequently occasioned me; inwardly resolving at the same time that, if he emerged with unblemished reputation from the perplexingly contradictoryrôlehe was then enacting, I would do him the most lavish justice when the proper time arrived.The number of men we now had on board the barque, and the constitution of the watches, were such that one of Joe’s “tricks” at the wheel always occurred from two to four o’clock on every alternate morning; and these were the only opportunities when it was possible for us to exchange confidences with any degree of safety from the possibility of discovery. Consequently, after having had a chat with Joe, I always had to wait forty-eight hours before I could learn what discoveries—if any—he had made in the interim. After the last-recorded long chat that we had had together, two such opportunities had passed without the occurrence of anything in the forecastle of a sufficiently definite character to furnish Joe with matter for a report; though he insisted that the frequent brief, hurried consultations, and the increased caution of the conspirators, convinced him that something very momentous must be impending. Such a statement naturally reawakened all my anxiety; which was not lessened by the fact that we now had a moon, in her second quarter, affording a sufficient amount of light to render our confidential communications at night almost impossible without detection; while, to add to my embarrassment, I expected to sight the island within the next forty hours.I thought the time had now arrived when I ought to take the mate into my confidence, and I did so during the progress of the following afternoon watch; taking care that our conversation should be as brief as possible, and that it should be conducted out of earshot of all eavesdroppers. As I had anticipated, Forbes seemed very much disposed to make light of the matter, and to regard it as a hallucination of Joe’s; protesting that, so far from having observed any symptoms of revolt or insubordination, he had been simply astonished at such orderly behaviour on the part of men who had lived the comparatively lawless life of diggers on a new gold-field. In short, we were both thoroughly puzzled. But we eventually agreed that, under the circumstances, it would be prudent to keep our eyes open, and to adopt precisely such precautionary measures as we should resort to if we were expecting the men to break into open mutiny. I also undertook to find or make an opportunity to instruct Joe that, in the event of his making any fresh discoveries, he was at once to acquaint the mate with them, if he experienced any difficulty in communicating with me.On that same evening, during the first watch, when—the ladies having retired as usual about four bells—Sir Edgar joined me, according to custom, to smoke a final cigar and indulge in a desultory chat before retiring to his own cabin for the night, I availed myself of the opportunity to explain the situation to him also; first cautioning him not to exhibit any astonishment or other emotion that might excite the suspicions of the helmsman, who would doubtless have his eyes upon us. He was, of course, and naturally enough, very much discomposed at such startling intelligence; the more so that I was unable to give him any definite information as to the character of the danger with which we were threatened; but he maintained the same enviable coolness and composure of manner that I had so greatly admired on the memorable night of our adventure in the Straits of Sunda, and assured me that I might rely upon him to be ready for action in any emergency, however sudden.It was my middle watch below that night, and I had been in my berth about an hour, tossing restlessly from side to side, and striving to devise plans to meet every contingency I could possibly think of, when I heard a sound of muffled footsteps outside my state-room door, followed by a very gentle cautious tap upon the panelling.“Yes,” I answered, in a low cautious tone; “who is there?”“It’s Joe, sir,” was the reply, in an equally subdued tone of voice. “I’ve got some news for you at last, with a vengeance!”I opened the door; and, sure enough, there stood Joe, glancing anxiously over his shoulder, as though he every moment expected to be followed and dragged on deck before he could make his communication.Signing to him to enter the cabin, I noiselessly closed the door behind him, and, pointing toward the locker, said—“Now, Joe, heave ahead, my man, and tell me your story in your own way. But, first of all, how did you manage to get here without being seen by any of the men?”“Well, sir,” said Joe, “it wasn’t very easy, and that’s a fact. I wanted to have a word with you durin’ the first watch, but you was talking with Sir Edgar; and, if you hadn’t been, it’d ha’ been all the same, because I couldn’t ha’ left the forecastle without bein’ missed. So I had to wait until our watch was relieved and had gone below; and then I had to wait again until they was all asleep, when I slips out of my bunk, careless-like, leavin’ the blankets all heaped-up so that they’d look, in the dim light, as if I was still there. Then I creeps up on deck, very quiet, but ready primed with a hexcuse in case any o’ the watch wanted to know what I was doin’ on deck in my watch below. But the lookout was comfortably perched between the knight-heads, smokin’, with his back to the deck, so he didn’t see me; and, as for the other two, I expects they was in the galley, takin’ a snooze, for I didn’t see anything of ’em. So I slips aft, in the shadder of the long-boat, and dodges round abaft the mainmast until I got the companion between me and the man at the wheel, when I climbs up on the poop, and crawls along the deck on all-fours to the companion-way; then down I comes, without even Mr Forbes seein’ me.”“All right, Joe,” said I. “But I shall have to go on deck and let the mate know, when you are ready to go for’ard again, or he might catch sight of you and pounce upon you without knowing who you are; which would simply ruin everything. However, we can arrange that presently. Now, let me know what it is that you have to tell me.”“Well, sir, it’s just this,” returned Joe. “These here carryin’s on of mine, and the way that you’ve been down upon me of late, has done the trick; and, to-night, durin’ the second dog-watch, the bosun tackled me, and, after a good deal of box-haulin’ about, told me what their little game is, and asked me if I’d jine ’em.”“Go on, Joe,” said I; “tell me everything that passed, as nearly as you can.”“Well,” continued Joe—who, it may be well to explain, had, as usual, been behaving most outrageously all day—“I’m boun’ to confess that I laid it on pretty thick to-day; and so did you, sir,”—with a quiet chuckle—“but not no thicker than what I deserved. So, along in the second dog-watch, Rogers comes up to me where I was smokin’, sulky-like, under the lee of the long-boat, away from everybody else, but where anybody could see me that wanted to, and he says—“‘Hullo, Joe, old shipmate,’ says he, ‘what’s the matter? You looks as if the hazin’ that the skipper’s been givin’ of you to-day has give you a fit of the blues!’“‘Blues?’ says I. ‘Blues ain’t no name for it! I’m sick and tired of the ship, and everybody in her. I haven’t been given no peace nor rest,’ says I, ‘since the day when I was clumsy enough to smash the gig. Of course I was sorry I done it,’ I says, ‘and I’d ha’ said so if the skipper had only treated me properly; but I ain’t sorrynow, and I means to take it out of him for the rest of the v’yage by doin’ every blessed thing I can think of to vex him. He’s made it pretty hot for me lately, and I means to make it hot forhim,’ I says; ‘and you may go aft and tell him so if you like,’ says I.“‘No, Joey,’ says he, ‘I’m not the man to tell tales upon a shipmate; nor there ain’t nobody else in the fo’c’s’le as’ll do such a dirty trick. But what’s come over ye, man? You’re that changed as your own mother wouldn’t know ye. I’m surprised at you,’ he says—‘a man that used to be such a tremenjous favourite with the skipper and the rest of ’em aft. What’s the meanin’ of it all?’“‘Look here, Bill Rogers,’ says I, turnin’ upon him as savage as you please, ‘just you drop that—d’ye hear? I gets hectorin’ and hazin’ enough from the quarter-deck; I won’t have none of it fromyou, nor from any other man what’s in this ship’s fo’c’s’le; so now I hopes you understand,’ I says.“‘All right, mate,’ he says; ‘you needn’t lose your temper with me; there’s no occasion for it. Besides, I’m a short-tempered man myself, and if it comes to—but that’s neither here nor there. I don’t want to quarrel with you, Joe; I’d a deal rather we was all fast friends in the fo’c’s’le. We foremast men ought to stick to one another, and back one another up; don’t you think so?’“‘Yes, I do,’ says I; ‘but how much have any of you chaps stuck to me, or backed me up? You’ve been as thick as thieves together,’ I says; ‘but—because, I s’pose, I haven’t been to the gold-fields—you’ve made me feel like a houtsider, from the very commencement of the v’yage,’ I says.“‘Well, if we did,’ says he, ‘it was because we didn’t know you so well as we do now.’“After that he stood pullin’ away at his pipe, and cogitatin’ like, for a minute or two; and then he looks up in my face, and says—“‘Look here, Joe Martin, you’ve been on the growl for more’n a week now; but I s’pose if I was to give you the chance to get back into the skipper’s favour by tellin’ him somethin’ he’d very much like to know, you wouldn’t be above doin’ it, would you?’“‘I don’t want no chance to get back into the skipper’s favour,’ I says. ‘If you knows anything that he’d like to know, go and tell him yourself,’ says I.“‘Why, Joe,’ he says, laughin’, ‘you’ve regular got your knife into the old man,’—beggin’ your pardon, Cap’n Saint Leger, but them was his words, sir.”“All right, Joe,” I whispered, anxiously; “what happened next?”“I says, ‘I haven’t got my knife into him any more’n he’s got his into me, I suppose. But if a man does me a hinjury, I ain’t goin’ to rest until I’ve got even with him.’“Then says Bill, ‘Now, I wonder what you’d say if anybody was to offer you a chance to get even with the skipper, and do a good thing for yourself at the same time?’“‘You wouldn’t have to wonder very long,’ says I, ‘if so be as anybody aboard this ship had such a chance to offer me. But them sort of chances don’t come to a man away out here in mid-ocean.’“‘Oh, don’t they?’ he says. ‘Well, I believes they do—sometimes. Just you stop here a minute, Joe,’ he says; ‘I’ll be back in a brace of shakes.’“So off he goes, and presently I hears him talkin’ to the cook in the galley, very earnest. By-and-by he comes out again, and he says—“‘Joe,’ says he, ‘do you know what the skipper’s pokin’ the ship away up here into this outlandish part of the Pacific for?’“‘Well,’ I says, ‘I’ve been told as he wants to get a cargo of sandal-wood for the China market.’“‘Nothin’ else?’ says he.“‘He never told me as he was after anythin’ else,’ I says, lookin’ very knowin’.“‘No,’ he says, ‘I don’t suppose he ever did; but somebody else might, mightn’t they?’“Says I, ‘What’s the use of all this backin’ and fillin’? I see you knows somethin’ as I thought nobody in the fo’c’s’le knowed anything about but myself. Now, if you’ve got anything to say about it, out with it; and if you haven’t, let’s talk about somethin’ else.’“Says he, ‘Did you ever know anybody by the name of George Moore?’“‘Yes,’ says I, ‘I did.’ And I had it on the tip of my tongue to say, ‘And a more worthless scamp I never wishes to meet with.’ But I didn’t, because it come to me to remember, just in time, that if these here chaps knowed anything about the treasure, ’twas most likely through George that they’d come to know it. So I says, ‘He was steward aboard here until the skipper sacked him in Sydney.’“‘I s’pose you’d know him again if you was to see him?’ he says; and he looked at me in a curious sort of way that makes me think, ‘Now, what the mischief are you a-drivin’ at? It’s my belief, Joe,’ thinks I, ‘that this chap’s layin’ a trap for you; and if you don’t keep your weather eye liftin’, you’ll fall into it, my lad,’ thinks I. So I just says, careless-like—“‘Oh yes, in course I should.’“‘When did you see him last?’ says Rogers.“‘The last time I seen him,’ says I, ‘was the day we arrived in Sydney, when the skipper paid him off and he left the ship.’“‘Quite sure?’ says Bill.“‘Certain,’ says I.“Then he laughed, and he says, ‘Well, Joe, you’re a more simple sort of a feller than I give you credit for bein’. Come into the galley,’ he says, ‘and let me introjuce you to an old friend.’“So we went into the galley together, and there was cookie busy amongst his pots and pans. When he sees us come in, he looks hard at Bill, and he says—“‘Well?’“I tell you, Cap’n Saint Leger, you might ha’ knocked me down with a rope-yarn, I was that astonished—for the voice was the voice ofGeorge Moore, and no other.“Hows’ever, all this backin’ and fillin’ of Bill’s had put me on my guard. I began to understand that, after all my play-actin’, they didn’t even then feel altogether sure of me—they was tryin’ me still; and that made me brace up and pull myself together; for I says to myself, ‘Now, if I makes a single mistake it’s all up with everybody abaft the mainmast, and me, too.’ So I looks cookie hard in the face, and I says—“‘Now I knows you, George, spite of your black hair and all your beard and mustachers. What’s the meanin’ of this here maskeradin’? Tip us your flipper, old shipmate,’ I says, hearty like, and as if I was downright glad to see him.“Well, sir, I can tell you George looked considerable nonplussed; while Bill, he just laughed; and he says to George, ‘Jacob, my son, you’ve been and let the cat out of the bag!’ Then he turns to me and says—“‘Now, Joe, there you are! Now’s your chance to get back the skipper’s favour by goin’ aft and tellin’ him as his old steward, George Moore, is aboard here, sailin’ under false colours.’“‘If he does,’ says George, ‘he’d better look out for hisself!’“‘All right, George, old man,’ I says; ‘don’t you worry. Did I tell the skipper anything about the way you used to talk to us about the treasure—and, by the livin’ Jingo,’ I says, ‘that’s what you’re after now, ain’t it, mate?’“‘Supposin’ we was,’ says he, ‘would you take a hand in the game? You didn’t seem noways eager about it when ’twas last mentioned.’“‘What was the use?’ says I. ‘None of the others ’d have nothin’ to do with it, and we couldn’t manage the thing by our two selves. But if that’s your game,’ says I, ‘I’m in with you—if it’s share and share alike; not otherwise,’ I says.“‘Well, it amounts pretty much to that,’ George says, ‘only I’m to have two shares instead of one, seein’ that I was the man that found out all about it. That’s the arrangement, ain’t it, Bill?’“‘That’s the arrangement,’ says Bill, ‘and a fair one it is, too,Ithink. What’syouropinion, Joe?’“‘Yes,’ I says, reluctant like, ‘I s’pose it’s fair. But how will it work out? will there be enough to make it worth the risk?’“‘Oh yes,’ says George. ‘I don’t know how much there is of it, but there’s sure to be a goodish pile, or the skipper wouldn’t take the trouble to come all this way to get it.’“‘Well, but,’ I says, ‘how’s the thing goin’ to be worked? I hope there ain’t goin’ to be no murder!’“‘Murder be hanged!’ says Bill. ‘What should there be any murder for? No; the whole thing’s very simple. We’re all goin’ to be perfectly quiet and do exactly as we’re told until the treasure’s found and put aboard the ship; and then, when the order’s give to up anchor and make sail from the island, we’re just goin’ to seize the skipper, the mate, and the passengers, unawares; clap the mate in irons; put the rest ashore; and off we goes.’“‘Well,’ I says, ‘and afterwards?’“‘Afterwards,’ says Bill, ‘we shall divide the treasure fairly amongst us; make the mate navigate the ship to some place where she can be comfortably cast away; and we poor shipwrecked mariners will land, with our swag snugly stowed away amongst our dunnage, and every man will then look after hisself.’“‘Well,’ I says, ‘that seems to be all plain sailin’ enough.’ It wasn’t my business to point out to ’em that they’d prob’ly find Mr Forbes a hard nut to crack, you see, sir; so I makes out to be quite satisfied with their plans, and to be quite ready to join in with ’em; and then I was took into the fo’c’s’le and introjuced to the rest as havin’ joined ’em, and everybody said how glad they was to have me, and that now there’d be no bother or trouble at all about the job. And—and—well, I think that’s about all, sir.”“Thank you, Joe,” said I, grasping the honest fellow’s hand. “It is a long story, but you have managed to make everything perfectly clear to me; and I fancy I shall not have much difficulty in circumventing the rascals. Now, if the men should make any alterations in their plans, you must let me know, if you possibly can; but be careful, above all things, that the men shall have no cause whatever to suspect your fidelity to them. And, remember, whatever orders I may give you, execute them to the letter, and promptly. Now, I will go on deck and have a word or two with Mr Forbes, during which you must get away for’ard again, as best you can.”I accordingly left Joe in my cabin, and sauntered up on deck, as was often my habit, even in my watch below, ostensibly to take a look at the weather, but in reality to caution Forbes against taking any notice of Joe, should he catch sight of that individual moving about the deck.It was by this time nearly seven bells in the middle watch; the moon hung low in the western sky over our port quarter, and a mottling of fine-weather cloud had gradually gathered in the heavens, which, while it allowed a few of the larger stars to gleam dimly through it here and there, intercepted a large proportion of the starlight, and rendered the night dark enough to make Joe’s escape forward a comparatively easy matter.The mate was pacing the poop slowly, fore and aft, as I emerged from the companion; but, catching sight of me, he came to my side and remarked—“The night continues fine, sir, but the wind seems inclined to drop. We were only going four and half when I hove the log at four bells, and now we seem to be scarcely going four.”“Yes,” said I, “it has dropped perceptibly since I went below; but if it will only last at this we shall be at anchor by sunset to-morrow.” Then, in a lower tone, I added, “If you see Joe Martin creeping away for’ard from the saloon, don’t take any notice of him, or make any sign that you are aware of his presence. I have much to tell you; but we must wait for a more favourable opportunity.”At this moment Joe’s head emerged from the darkness of the companion; so I walked aft, glanced into the binnacle, and then abstractedly placed myself before the helmsman in such a position as to obstruct his view of that part of the maindeck which Joe would have to traverse before reaching the concealing shadow of the long-boat. I stood thus, apparently sunk in reflection, until I observed Joe glide across the exposed space and disappear; when I went back to my cabin and fully dressed myself, in readiness to go on deck again at eight bells.
This secret conversation between Joe and myself—secret by reason of the intense darkness of the night, and by the precautions I had deemed it expedient to take, at an early stage of the conversation, to conceal my precise whereabouts from any prying eyes among the starboard watch—at first produced within me a feeling of the keenest uneasiness and anxiety. For Joe’s revelation as to the discovery by the late steward of my secret relating to the concealed treasure furnished me with what had previously been lacking, namely,a motivefor that secret plotting of the existence of which Joe was so firmly convinced. The story to which I had that night listened left no room for doubt in my mind that my own want of caution and the late steward’s inquisitive propensities had placed within the knowledge of the latter the two important facts that I possessed the secret of a concealed treasure, and that it was my intention, on leaving Sydney, to proceed in search of it. Moreover, it was clear enough that the fellow had no sooner acquired this knowledge than he concocted a plan for the eventual acquisition of the treasure, and made some effort to secure the assistance of the crew in the carrying out of this plan, whatever it might happen to have been. Failing in this, might he not, out of sheer malice, have communicated the secret to some one else—our present cook, for instance—and instigated the man to take some such steps as himself had contemplated? Such a proceeding would at once account satisfactorily for the curious fact that I had succeeded in obtaining a crew when no other shipmaster within the port could do so. The only weak element of such a supposition consisted in my inability to reconcile myself to the belief that such a man as our late steward would ever, under any provocation, be weak enough to part with a secret that might, even under the most unlikely combination of circumstances and in the most distant future, possibly be of some advantage to himself. Yet this man, Martin, whose life I had saved, and who had impressed me as being a thoroughly honest, straightforward, trustworthy fellow, roundly asserted that something of a secret and mysterious character was going on among the newly shipped men—something from which he, on account of his assumed integrity, had been quietly yet consistently excluded; and he had heard the word “treasure” mentioned by these presumable conspirators. Then I argued with myself that, after all, when one came to reflect upon it, the exclusive ways of these ex-gold-miners and the mere mention of the word “treasure” seemed rather slender threads from which to weave so portentous a suspicion as that which Joe’s communication had suggested. For aught that I knew, the late steward’s discourses upon the subject of the treasure might have been of such a character as to suggest to the minds of his hearers an absurdly exaggerated idea of its value, leaving upon honest Joe’s mind the impression that it must be fabulously rich, and altogether the kind of thing to obtain possession of which men would hesitate at no crime, however monstrous. And, having had experience of one attempt to gain possession of it by means of treachery, was it not natural that the simple fellow, discovering, or believing that he had discovered, something in the nature of a secret understanding among his shipmates, should at once leap to the conclusion that it was nothing less than a second attempt upon the treasure that was being planned? As to the cook’s inquiry whether Joe would not rather be a rich man than be obliged to follow the sea for the remainder of his life, I thought nothing of that; sailors—like everybody else—are possessed of a rooted conviction that wealth is the panacea of all evils. By the time that I had reached this point in my mental argument it was eight bells, and, Forbes coming on deck to relieve me, I went to my cabin more than half convinced that Joe had, after all, discovered a mare’s nest; and having thus argued myself into a more comfortable frame of mind, I lay down and slept soundly until I was called by the steward at my usual hour of rising.
I will do Joe the justice to say that, having settled in his mind the part that he would play in the drama that he believed was evolving itself on board the barque, he thenceforth played it to the life, and with a skill so consummate as to deceive the most suspicious. He assumed the rôle of a man who, if let alone, would be willing enough to do his duty honestly, and to the best of his ability, but who could not and would not tolerate the smallest measure of injustice. And he gave himself all the airs of an aggrieved person—of one who has been harshly treated for a trivial fault; his whole manner was the very impersonation of sullen resentment, and the careless, slovenly way in which he performed his duties was a constant source of provocation to me, even though I knew—or thought I knew—that it was all assumed. So exasperating was he that sometimes I even doubted whether his behaviour really was assumption—whether, after all, I had not been deceived in the man; whether it was not rather his former good behaviour that was assumed, while his present delinquencies were the result of an outbreak of irrepressible evil in him. There were even times when I asked myself whether he might not be a ringleader in the very plot he professed to be so anxious to discover, and whether his anxiety to enlighten me might not be assumed for the purpose of blinding and misleading me the more effectually. Never in all my life had I witnessed so thorough and radical a change in any one as seemed to have come over Joe Martin. But a quiet word or two with him, or a glance into his honest eyes when no one was near enough at hand to read their expression, always sufficed to reassure me as to his absolute fidelity. Since it was possible for him to make me doubt him, despite the many evidences he had afforded me of his honesty, it is not to be wondered at that Sir Edgar and Lady Emily were completely deceived by him; and often did they, in the comparative privacy of the saloon, deplore Joe’s lamentable fall from his original virtuous condition. On such occasions I always assumed a tone of righteous indignation and severity, giving as free vent as possible to the very real annoyance that the fellow’s pranks frequently occasioned me; inwardly resolving at the same time that, if he emerged with unblemished reputation from the perplexingly contradictoryrôlehe was then enacting, I would do him the most lavish justice when the proper time arrived.
The number of men we now had on board the barque, and the constitution of the watches, were such that one of Joe’s “tricks” at the wheel always occurred from two to four o’clock on every alternate morning; and these were the only opportunities when it was possible for us to exchange confidences with any degree of safety from the possibility of discovery. Consequently, after having had a chat with Joe, I always had to wait forty-eight hours before I could learn what discoveries—if any—he had made in the interim. After the last-recorded long chat that we had had together, two such opportunities had passed without the occurrence of anything in the forecastle of a sufficiently definite character to furnish Joe with matter for a report; though he insisted that the frequent brief, hurried consultations, and the increased caution of the conspirators, convinced him that something very momentous must be impending. Such a statement naturally reawakened all my anxiety; which was not lessened by the fact that we now had a moon, in her second quarter, affording a sufficient amount of light to render our confidential communications at night almost impossible without detection; while, to add to my embarrassment, I expected to sight the island within the next forty hours.
I thought the time had now arrived when I ought to take the mate into my confidence, and I did so during the progress of the following afternoon watch; taking care that our conversation should be as brief as possible, and that it should be conducted out of earshot of all eavesdroppers. As I had anticipated, Forbes seemed very much disposed to make light of the matter, and to regard it as a hallucination of Joe’s; protesting that, so far from having observed any symptoms of revolt or insubordination, he had been simply astonished at such orderly behaviour on the part of men who had lived the comparatively lawless life of diggers on a new gold-field. In short, we were both thoroughly puzzled. But we eventually agreed that, under the circumstances, it would be prudent to keep our eyes open, and to adopt precisely such precautionary measures as we should resort to if we were expecting the men to break into open mutiny. I also undertook to find or make an opportunity to instruct Joe that, in the event of his making any fresh discoveries, he was at once to acquaint the mate with them, if he experienced any difficulty in communicating with me.
On that same evening, during the first watch, when—the ladies having retired as usual about four bells—Sir Edgar joined me, according to custom, to smoke a final cigar and indulge in a desultory chat before retiring to his own cabin for the night, I availed myself of the opportunity to explain the situation to him also; first cautioning him not to exhibit any astonishment or other emotion that might excite the suspicions of the helmsman, who would doubtless have his eyes upon us. He was, of course, and naturally enough, very much discomposed at such startling intelligence; the more so that I was unable to give him any definite information as to the character of the danger with which we were threatened; but he maintained the same enviable coolness and composure of manner that I had so greatly admired on the memorable night of our adventure in the Straits of Sunda, and assured me that I might rely upon him to be ready for action in any emergency, however sudden.
It was my middle watch below that night, and I had been in my berth about an hour, tossing restlessly from side to side, and striving to devise plans to meet every contingency I could possibly think of, when I heard a sound of muffled footsteps outside my state-room door, followed by a very gentle cautious tap upon the panelling.
“Yes,” I answered, in a low cautious tone; “who is there?”
“It’s Joe, sir,” was the reply, in an equally subdued tone of voice. “I’ve got some news for you at last, with a vengeance!”
I opened the door; and, sure enough, there stood Joe, glancing anxiously over his shoulder, as though he every moment expected to be followed and dragged on deck before he could make his communication.
Signing to him to enter the cabin, I noiselessly closed the door behind him, and, pointing toward the locker, said—
“Now, Joe, heave ahead, my man, and tell me your story in your own way. But, first of all, how did you manage to get here without being seen by any of the men?”
“Well, sir,” said Joe, “it wasn’t very easy, and that’s a fact. I wanted to have a word with you durin’ the first watch, but you was talking with Sir Edgar; and, if you hadn’t been, it’d ha’ been all the same, because I couldn’t ha’ left the forecastle without bein’ missed. So I had to wait until our watch was relieved and had gone below; and then I had to wait again until they was all asleep, when I slips out of my bunk, careless-like, leavin’ the blankets all heaped-up so that they’d look, in the dim light, as if I was still there. Then I creeps up on deck, very quiet, but ready primed with a hexcuse in case any o’ the watch wanted to know what I was doin’ on deck in my watch below. But the lookout was comfortably perched between the knight-heads, smokin’, with his back to the deck, so he didn’t see me; and, as for the other two, I expects they was in the galley, takin’ a snooze, for I didn’t see anything of ’em. So I slips aft, in the shadder of the long-boat, and dodges round abaft the mainmast until I got the companion between me and the man at the wheel, when I climbs up on the poop, and crawls along the deck on all-fours to the companion-way; then down I comes, without even Mr Forbes seein’ me.”
“All right, Joe,” said I. “But I shall have to go on deck and let the mate know, when you are ready to go for’ard again, or he might catch sight of you and pounce upon you without knowing who you are; which would simply ruin everything. However, we can arrange that presently. Now, let me know what it is that you have to tell me.”
“Well, sir, it’s just this,” returned Joe. “These here carryin’s on of mine, and the way that you’ve been down upon me of late, has done the trick; and, to-night, durin’ the second dog-watch, the bosun tackled me, and, after a good deal of box-haulin’ about, told me what their little game is, and asked me if I’d jine ’em.”
“Go on, Joe,” said I; “tell me everything that passed, as nearly as you can.”
“Well,” continued Joe—who, it may be well to explain, had, as usual, been behaving most outrageously all day—“I’m boun’ to confess that I laid it on pretty thick to-day; and so did you, sir,”—with a quiet chuckle—“but not no thicker than what I deserved. So, along in the second dog-watch, Rogers comes up to me where I was smokin’, sulky-like, under the lee of the long-boat, away from everybody else, but where anybody could see me that wanted to, and he says—
“‘Hullo, Joe, old shipmate,’ says he, ‘what’s the matter? You looks as if the hazin’ that the skipper’s been givin’ of you to-day has give you a fit of the blues!’
“‘Blues?’ says I. ‘Blues ain’t no name for it! I’m sick and tired of the ship, and everybody in her. I haven’t been given no peace nor rest,’ says I, ‘since the day when I was clumsy enough to smash the gig. Of course I was sorry I done it,’ I says, ‘and I’d ha’ said so if the skipper had only treated me properly; but I ain’t sorrynow, and I means to take it out of him for the rest of the v’yage by doin’ every blessed thing I can think of to vex him. He’s made it pretty hot for me lately, and I means to make it hot forhim,’ I says; ‘and you may go aft and tell him so if you like,’ says I.
“‘No, Joey,’ says he, ‘I’m not the man to tell tales upon a shipmate; nor there ain’t nobody else in the fo’c’s’le as’ll do such a dirty trick. But what’s come over ye, man? You’re that changed as your own mother wouldn’t know ye. I’m surprised at you,’ he says—‘a man that used to be such a tremenjous favourite with the skipper and the rest of ’em aft. What’s the meanin’ of it all?’
“‘Look here, Bill Rogers,’ says I, turnin’ upon him as savage as you please, ‘just you drop that—d’ye hear? I gets hectorin’ and hazin’ enough from the quarter-deck; I won’t have none of it fromyou, nor from any other man what’s in this ship’s fo’c’s’le; so now I hopes you understand,’ I says.
“‘All right, mate,’ he says; ‘you needn’t lose your temper with me; there’s no occasion for it. Besides, I’m a short-tempered man myself, and if it comes to—but that’s neither here nor there. I don’t want to quarrel with you, Joe; I’d a deal rather we was all fast friends in the fo’c’s’le. We foremast men ought to stick to one another, and back one another up; don’t you think so?’
“‘Yes, I do,’ says I; ‘but how much have any of you chaps stuck to me, or backed me up? You’ve been as thick as thieves together,’ I says; ‘but—because, I s’pose, I haven’t been to the gold-fields—you’ve made me feel like a houtsider, from the very commencement of the v’yage,’ I says.
“‘Well, if we did,’ says he, ‘it was because we didn’t know you so well as we do now.’
“After that he stood pullin’ away at his pipe, and cogitatin’ like, for a minute or two; and then he looks up in my face, and says—
“‘Look here, Joe Martin, you’ve been on the growl for more’n a week now; but I s’pose if I was to give you the chance to get back into the skipper’s favour by tellin’ him somethin’ he’d very much like to know, you wouldn’t be above doin’ it, would you?’
“‘I don’t want no chance to get back into the skipper’s favour,’ I says. ‘If you knows anything that he’d like to know, go and tell him yourself,’ says I.
“‘Why, Joe,’ he says, laughin’, ‘you’ve regular got your knife into the old man,’—beggin’ your pardon, Cap’n Saint Leger, but them was his words, sir.”
“All right, Joe,” I whispered, anxiously; “what happened next?”
“I says, ‘I haven’t got my knife into him any more’n he’s got his into me, I suppose. But if a man does me a hinjury, I ain’t goin’ to rest until I’ve got even with him.’
“Then says Bill, ‘Now, I wonder what you’d say if anybody was to offer you a chance to get even with the skipper, and do a good thing for yourself at the same time?’
“‘You wouldn’t have to wonder very long,’ says I, ‘if so be as anybody aboard this ship had such a chance to offer me. But them sort of chances don’t come to a man away out here in mid-ocean.’
“‘Oh, don’t they?’ he says. ‘Well, I believes they do—sometimes. Just you stop here a minute, Joe,’ he says; ‘I’ll be back in a brace of shakes.’
“So off he goes, and presently I hears him talkin’ to the cook in the galley, very earnest. By-and-by he comes out again, and he says—
“‘Joe,’ says he, ‘do you know what the skipper’s pokin’ the ship away up here into this outlandish part of the Pacific for?’
“‘Well,’ I says, ‘I’ve been told as he wants to get a cargo of sandal-wood for the China market.’
“‘Nothin’ else?’ says he.
“‘He never told me as he was after anythin’ else,’ I says, lookin’ very knowin’.
“‘No,’ he says, ‘I don’t suppose he ever did; but somebody else might, mightn’t they?’
“Says I, ‘What’s the use of all this backin’ and fillin’? I see you knows somethin’ as I thought nobody in the fo’c’s’le knowed anything about but myself. Now, if you’ve got anything to say about it, out with it; and if you haven’t, let’s talk about somethin’ else.’
“Says he, ‘Did you ever know anybody by the name of George Moore?’
“‘Yes,’ says I, ‘I did.’ And I had it on the tip of my tongue to say, ‘And a more worthless scamp I never wishes to meet with.’ But I didn’t, because it come to me to remember, just in time, that if these here chaps knowed anything about the treasure, ’twas most likely through George that they’d come to know it. So I says, ‘He was steward aboard here until the skipper sacked him in Sydney.’
“‘I s’pose you’d know him again if you was to see him?’ he says; and he looked at me in a curious sort of way that makes me think, ‘Now, what the mischief are you a-drivin’ at? It’s my belief, Joe,’ thinks I, ‘that this chap’s layin’ a trap for you; and if you don’t keep your weather eye liftin’, you’ll fall into it, my lad,’ thinks I. So I just says, careless-like—
“‘Oh yes, in course I should.’
“‘When did you see him last?’ says Rogers.
“‘The last time I seen him,’ says I, ‘was the day we arrived in Sydney, when the skipper paid him off and he left the ship.’
“‘Quite sure?’ says Bill.
“‘Certain,’ says I.
“Then he laughed, and he says, ‘Well, Joe, you’re a more simple sort of a feller than I give you credit for bein’. Come into the galley,’ he says, ‘and let me introjuce you to an old friend.’
“So we went into the galley together, and there was cookie busy amongst his pots and pans. When he sees us come in, he looks hard at Bill, and he says—
“‘Well?’
“I tell you, Cap’n Saint Leger, you might ha’ knocked me down with a rope-yarn, I was that astonished—for the voice was the voice ofGeorge Moore, and no other.
“Hows’ever, all this backin’ and fillin’ of Bill’s had put me on my guard. I began to understand that, after all my play-actin’, they didn’t even then feel altogether sure of me—they was tryin’ me still; and that made me brace up and pull myself together; for I says to myself, ‘Now, if I makes a single mistake it’s all up with everybody abaft the mainmast, and me, too.’ So I looks cookie hard in the face, and I says—
“‘Now I knows you, George, spite of your black hair and all your beard and mustachers. What’s the meanin’ of this here maskeradin’? Tip us your flipper, old shipmate,’ I says, hearty like, and as if I was downright glad to see him.
“Well, sir, I can tell you George looked considerable nonplussed; while Bill, he just laughed; and he says to George, ‘Jacob, my son, you’ve been and let the cat out of the bag!’ Then he turns to me and says—
“‘Now, Joe, there you are! Now’s your chance to get back the skipper’s favour by goin’ aft and tellin’ him as his old steward, George Moore, is aboard here, sailin’ under false colours.’
“‘If he does,’ says George, ‘he’d better look out for hisself!’
“‘All right, George, old man,’ I says; ‘don’t you worry. Did I tell the skipper anything about the way you used to talk to us about the treasure—and, by the livin’ Jingo,’ I says, ‘that’s what you’re after now, ain’t it, mate?’
“‘Supposin’ we was,’ says he, ‘would you take a hand in the game? You didn’t seem noways eager about it when ’twas last mentioned.’
“‘What was the use?’ says I. ‘None of the others ’d have nothin’ to do with it, and we couldn’t manage the thing by our two selves. But if that’s your game,’ says I, ‘I’m in with you—if it’s share and share alike; not otherwise,’ I says.
“‘Well, it amounts pretty much to that,’ George says, ‘only I’m to have two shares instead of one, seein’ that I was the man that found out all about it. That’s the arrangement, ain’t it, Bill?’
“‘That’s the arrangement,’ says Bill, ‘and a fair one it is, too,Ithink. What’syouropinion, Joe?’
“‘Yes,’ I says, reluctant like, ‘I s’pose it’s fair. But how will it work out? will there be enough to make it worth the risk?’
“‘Oh yes,’ says George. ‘I don’t know how much there is of it, but there’s sure to be a goodish pile, or the skipper wouldn’t take the trouble to come all this way to get it.’
“‘Well, but,’ I says, ‘how’s the thing goin’ to be worked? I hope there ain’t goin’ to be no murder!’
“‘Murder be hanged!’ says Bill. ‘What should there be any murder for? No; the whole thing’s very simple. We’re all goin’ to be perfectly quiet and do exactly as we’re told until the treasure’s found and put aboard the ship; and then, when the order’s give to up anchor and make sail from the island, we’re just goin’ to seize the skipper, the mate, and the passengers, unawares; clap the mate in irons; put the rest ashore; and off we goes.’
“‘Well,’ I says, ‘and afterwards?’
“‘Afterwards,’ says Bill, ‘we shall divide the treasure fairly amongst us; make the mate navigate the ship to some place where she can be comfortably cast away; and we poor shipwrecked mariners will land, with our swag snugly stowed away amongst our dunnage, and every man will then look after hisself.’
“‘Well,’ I says, ‘that seems to be all plain sailin’ enough.’ It wasn’t my business to point out to ’em that they’d prob’ly find Mr Forbes a hard nut to crack, you see, sir; so I makes out to be quite satisfied with their plans, and to be quite ready to join in with ’em; and then I was took into the fo’c’s’le and introjuced to the rest as havin’ joined ’em, and everybody said how glad they was to have me, and that now there’d be no bother or trouble at all about the job. And—and—well, I think that’s about all, sir.”
“Thank you, Joe,” said I, grasping the honest fellow’s hand. “It is a long story, but you have managed to make everything perfectly clear to me; and I fancy I shall not have much difficulty in circumventing the rascals. Now, if the men should make any alterations in their plans, you must let me know, if you possibly can; but be careful, above all things, that the men shall have no cause whatever to suspect your fidelity to them. And, remember, whatever orders I may give you, execute them to the letter, and promptly. Now, I will go on deck and have a word or two with Mr Forbes, during which you must get away for’ard again, as best you can.”
I accordingly left Joe in my cabin, and sauntered up on deck, as was often my habit, even in my watch below, ostensibly to take a look at the weather, but in reality to caution Forbes against taking any notice of Joe, should he catch sight of that individual moving about the deck.
It was by this time nearly seven bells in the middle watch; the moon hung low in the western sky over our port quarter, and a mottling of fine-weather cloud had gradually gathered in the heavens, which, while it allowed a few of the larger stars to gleam dimly through it here and there, intercepted a large proportion of the starlight, and rendered the night dark enough to make Joe’s escape forward a comparatively easy matter.
The mate was pacing the poop slowly, fore and aft, as I emerged from the companion; but, catching sight of me, he came to my side and remarked—
“The night continues fine, sir, but the wind seems inclined to drop. We were only going four and half when I hove the log at four bells, and now we seem to be scarcely going four.”
“Yes,” said I, “it has dropped perceptibly since I went below; but if it will only last at this we shall be at anchor by sunset to-morrow.” Then, in a lower tone, I added, “If you see Joe Martin creeping away for’ard from the saloon, don’t take any notice of him, or make any sign that you are aware of his presence. I have much to tell you; but we must wait for a more favourable opportunity.”
At this moment Joe’s head emerged from the darkness of the companion; so I walked aft, glanced into the binnacle, and then abstractedly placed myself before the helmsman in such a position as to obstruct his view of that part of the maindeck which Joe would have to traverse before reaching the concealing shadow of the long-boat. I stood thus, apparently sunk in reflection, until I observed Joe glide across the exposed space and disappear; when I went back to my cabin and fully dressed myself, in readiness to go on deck again at eight bells.
Chapter Fifteen.We arrive at the Treasure Island.During the succeeding watch, I had leisure to take a careful mental review of Joe’s story, and the conclusion at which I arrived was that the man Moore, having failed in his endeavour to seduce the original crew of theEsmeraldafrom their duty, had, on his arrival at Sydney, no sooner recognised the probability of their desertion—which, for aught I knew to the contrary, he might very possibly have contributed to bring about—than he must have devoted himself to the task of collecting the party of men whose wiles I had now to circumvent. What a patient, crafty fellow the man had proved himself to be! It really appeared as though he must have had, almost from the outset of the voyage, some suspicion as to the character of the cryptogram over which he had seen me puzzling so often—or might he not have gathered its nature from a chance word or two overheard while I had been discussing the subject with Sir Edgar?—for he no sooner became aware in a general way of its contents than he was ready with a plan by which to turn the adventure to his own advantage. He was persevering, too; for that plan had no sooner failed than he must have gone to work to formulate another, so skilfully devised, and so carefully carried through that, but for Joe’s devoted fidelity, it must have infallibly succeeded. Indeed, I felt by no means satisfied that they would not succeed, even now. True, their designs, as revealed to Joe, might be very easily frustrated; but there was an unpleasant doubt in my mind as to thebona fidesof that revelation. I could scarcely believe that men who had already exhibited such indisputable proof of extreme caution and steadfast self-control could be so easily imposed upon as they appeared to have been by Joe! What if they had seen through his devices, and had suspected his intentions? Would they not, in that case, have realised that our suspicions were aroused? and might they not have merelyfeignedto have fallen into Joe’s trap, and have confided to him a purely fictitious statement of their plans, concocted for the express purpose of throwing us off our guard and leading us astray? Taking into account the deep guile that had prompted them to adopt and consistently maintain a course of the most orderly and irreproachable behaviour as the most likely means of blinding me to and averting the faintest suspicion of their nefarious designs, I could not help feeling that such a line of action on their part was only too probable; and, in casting about in my mind for some effectual method of subverting their plans, I fully realised that I should have to take this contingency into consideration, while preparing also a counterplot to that revealed by the man Rogers to Joe. Of one thing, and one thing only, could I be certain, which was thatnobody—not even myself—knew the amount of the treasure; and it appeared to me that upon this fact must I base my plans. These reflections, given above in a very condensed form, fully occupied my mind during the first hour and a half of my watch, and were only interrupted by the appearance in the eastern quarter of that first faint paling of the darkness which heralded the dawn of a new day. This temporarily diverted my thoughts into a new channel; for, upon solving the enigma of the cryptogram, my first act had been to consult a chart of the Pacific, with the resulting discovery that no such island as that referred to in the Saint Leger document was to be found upon it. Now, the ship’s position on the previous noon, and her run since then, were such that if the morning happened to break clear, the island ought to be just visible, right ahead, at daybreak, provided, of course, that the man who secreted the treasure had made no mistake in his calculations. On the one hand, I thought it probable that, considering the important issues at stake, the utmost care would be taken to verify the position of the island beyond all possibility of error; while, on the other, was the curious fact that no such island—not even a rock, or indeed shoal water—appeared on the chart in the position indicated. This circumstance, coupled with my knowledge of the imperfect character of the instruments in use by navigators of the period at which the cryptogram had been written, caused me now to experience no little curiosity and anxiety as to what the approaching daylight might reveal.I was not to be left long in suspense. We were in the tropics, where the light comes and goes with a rush, a few minutes only intervening between broad day and deepest night. The first faint streak of scarcely perceptible pallor along the verge of the eastern horizon on our starboard bow lengthened and widened, and grew more pronounced, even as I gazed upon it, until it became a broad segment of cold, colourless light, insensibly melting out of the circumscribing darkness. Then a faint, delicate tone of softest primrose began to steal through it, quickly strengthening and brightening as the light spread upward and right and left, paling the stars one by one, until they dwindled away and vanished in the soft, rich blue that was swiftly chasing the darkness across the sky. Anon, a warm, rich, rosy flush began to pervade the primrose tones of the eastern horizon, against which the level line of the ocean’s marge cut sharply in tones of deepest indigo; while, overhead, the brightening blue was delicately mottled with a whole archipelago of thin, fleecy cloudlets, pink tinged, and bordered along their lower edges with purest gold, that were mysteriously floating into view, apparently from illimitable space. Then from that point on the horizon where the deepening rose colour glowed most brilliantly, up shot a single white ray perpendicularly toward the zenith, narrow and well defined where it sprang from the horizon, and broadening as it soared aloft until it became lost among the lowest tier of clouds, now deeply tinged with dyes of richest crimson. This single ray had scarcely made itself apparent ere it was followed by others radiating fan-wise from the same spot; and in another instant a spark of golden flame flashed across the sea from the horizon, at the point of junction of the rays, tingeing the small wave-crests in its wake with ruddy gold that deepened first into a line and then into a broad path of shimmering golden radiance, as the burning rim of the sun soared slowly out of the purple sea.At the same instant, the man who had the lookout, and who had stationed himself on the topgallant forecastle, right in the eyes of the ship, turned sharply round, facing the poop, and reported—“Land ho! right ahead.”I had been so completely absorbed in contemplation of the magnificent spectacle of the sunrise that, for the moment, I had entirely forgotten the island, and everything connected with it; but the cry of the lookout brought it back to my mind with a flash, and, moving to the mizzen-rigging, and springing upon a hen-coop, I directed my gaze straight ahead, with my hand over my eyes to shield them from the dazzle of the sun.Yes, there it was, undoubtedly; a faint, pinkish-grey shape, right over the starboard cat-head, as I then stood; a low hummock on the left, with a hill next it, the outline of which, even at that distance, bore a striking resemblance to a man’s nose, the upper lip on the right of it showing just clear of the horizon. Yes; there was the treasure island, beyond all question! The next point to be determined was, whether the treasure still lay buried there; and if so, how was I to obtain and retain possession of it?Of one thing I felt morally certain, which was that, as soon as the men felt assured that the whole of the treasure was on board, they would take the ship from me, either by force or guile, if they could. It was of course open to me to make a fight for it, if I chose; but, even assuming that I could reckon upon Sir Edgar’s assistance—as I felt sure I could—that would make only four of us to oppose eleven men, who, I had no manner of doubt, would prove as resolute and determined in a stand-up fight as they had already shown themselves to be in the pursuit of their organised plans. The odds were nearly three to one against us. Opposed to these, with, for our antagonists, resolute men, whose knowledge of the consequences that must inevitably follow upon an unsuccessful attempt at piracy would nerve them to desperation—men who were unquestionably full of brute courage, and who, moreover, were doubtless as well armed as ourselves—was I justified in entertaining the slightest hope of success in the event of my submitting the matter to the arbitrament of battle? The answer to this question was an unqualified “No!”If, then, it was hopeless to expect that a resort to force would enable me to retain my property, my freedom, and the freedom and property, ay, perhaps even the lives of those who, in such a crisis as this, would naturally look to me for the preservation of both, I must resort to guile. I mortally hate anything that in the slightest degree savours of deception, either in words or conduct, and have made it an invariable rule never to engage in any transaction needing the one or the other for its successful accomplishment; but here was a case in which I had no choice but to meet guile with guile. How was it to be done? Possibly, if the treasure happened to be in a compact form, and easily accessible, Forbes, Joe, and myself might be able to secure it and convey it on board the ship, unknown to the men, while they were busily engaged in digging for it elsewhere—for, now that they were aware of its existence, it seemed to me that my best chance of success lay in employing them in the search, while taking care that none of them should find it. This would naturally lead them to the conclusion that, if my document were not an ingenious hoax, the treasure had already been discovered and secured by somebody else.This plan rather took my fancy. It was simple, feasible, and demanded no elaborate system of deception; the men would simply be set to dig upon a certain spot, and, failing, after a sufficiently exhaustive search, to find anything, the digging would be abandoned, and they would be sent to various more or less distant parts of the island to cut sandal-wood. The more I thought of it, the better I liked it; and when, later on, during the forenoon, I found an opportunity to talk it over with Sir Edgar and Forbes—having previously related to them the substance of Joe’s communication made to me during the middle watch—they agreed with me that, failing a better scheme, they saw no reason why it should not be successful. Sir Edgar, as I had anticipated, declared himself ready to act in any way that I might suggest, at a moment’s notice; and, now that he had had time to think over my former communication to him, and to grow accustomed to the idea of a coming contest, either of strength or wits, with the men, was as eager for the fray as a schoolboy is for the great cricket-match of the year.Meanwhile, the wind had slightly freshened with the rising of the sun, and the ship was gliding along upon a taut bowline, under all plain sail, at a speed of about six knots, heading up about a point and a half to windward of the northern extremity of the island. We were approaching it from the south-west—the direction mentioned in my ancestor’s cryptogram—and as we gradually rose it above the horizon it was curious to note how exact a resemblance its outline bore to the profile of an upturned human face lying prone along the water. It was so striking that even the children remarked upon it; while, as for the men, they could scarcely remove their eyes from it, thoughtheirinterest in the place was doubtless founded more upon the wealth they hoped to find upon it than upon its very singular appearance. I noted this morning, without appearing to do so, that there was a great deal of animated conversation going on upon the forecastle, accompanied by many stealthy glances toward the poop; while the late steward—now sweltering in the heat of the galley, and of his hirsute disguise—was being continually appealed to. Now that I knew this man’s secret I was filled with astonishment that I had not immediately penetrated it; for, disguise his features as he might, he could not divest himself of the sly, stealthy way in which he used his eyes, nor of the noiseless, treacherous way in which he moved. I had noted these characteristics in him as far back as the day on which he had signed articles at Sydney; yet, strange to say, familiar as they were to me, I had never for a moment suspected his identity, probably because, when I happened to think of him at all, I assumed as a matter of course that he would naturally make the best of his way to the gold-fields. Of course, since we had been at sea, his avocation as cook had confined him so closely to the galley that I had rarely seen him; and upon the rare occasions when he had been obliged to present himself in full view my thoughts had usually been so busy upon other matters that I had taken little or no notice of him. Indeed, I shrewdly suspected that it was the comparative privacy of the galley that had led him to choose the disagreeable functions of ship’s cook.All that day, until three o’clock in the afternoon, we glided gently along over a smooth, sparkling sea, toward the island, noting with keen interest its various features as they imperceptibly resolved themselves out of the hazy blue tint that it had worn in the distance. The first marked change that occurred in its appearance was the breaking-up of the flat silhouette into a series of softly shadowed markings which indicated the shapes of the hills and valleys, the slopes and ravines into which its surface was broken. Then, as the sun swept over it and round toward its western side, the light fell more strongly upon its hillsides; its shadows grew deeper, and an all-pervading tone of green gave evidence of its exceeding fertility. Later still, the green became broken up into an infinite variety of shades; while the swelling rounded outlines that stood out from and yet indicated these multitudinous tints, revealed the fact that the island was densely wooded to its very summit. By six bells in the afternoon we had neared it to within three miles, and were enabled to see that its northern extremity was bold and precipitous, with naked, rocky cliffs, against the base of which the white surf chafed and roared with a ceaseless thunder that reached our ears even at that distance. The south-western extremity, while as bold as the northern, and almost as precipitous, was wooded right down to the water’s edge; while from the lofty hill, that in the distance had borne the appearance of a gigantic human nose, there was an irregular but general slope toward the south-western shore; the entrance to the river mentioned in the cryptogram being clearly indicated by a low projecting point stretching southward from the bold cliffs marking the northern boundary of the island.Having satisfactorily made out the mouth of the river, I caused the helm to be shifted, and we bore away for our anchorage, which was reached about an hour later, in a small estuary situate at the southern extremity of the island, affording perfect shelter from all winds from south-west round by north and east to south-east.By the time that the hands had got the canvas stowed, yards squared, running gear hauled taut and coiled down, and decks cleared up generally, it was five o’clock in the evening; and the shadows were already beginning to deepen on the western side of the ravine along which the river flowed, while its eastern slopes were glowing brilliantly in the warm orange tones of the evening sunlight. It chanced that we had dropped our anchor at the precise spot which afforded us a clear view up the gently winding river for a distance of something like a quarter of a mile, and never in all my life had I looked upon a more lovely scene than the one that then delighted our eyes. The so-called “river” was really a small arm of the sea formed by a beautiful ravine—the bottom of which lay below the sea level—dividing the southern portion of the island into two unequal parts; and as the western side of this ravine was high and steep, while the eastern side sloped gently but unevenly up from the water until it merged in the high ground beyond, the whole surface of the island being finely broken and densely wooded, the contrasting effects of brilliant sunshine and soft purple shadow, with the multitudinous tints and endless varieties of foliage, vividly marked in the foreground and insensibly merging into a delicious, soft, misty grey over the distant heights, combined to form a picture the charming, fairy-like beauty of which it is as impossible to describe as it was entrancing to look upon.So lovely indeed was it that I found it hard to resist the entreaties of Lady Emily and her sister that I would lower a boat and take them for a short pull up the river before sunset. It was necessary, however, that our first visit to this lovely island paradise should be made with all due circumspection; for although no sign or trace of inhabitants had as yet been discovered, the place might for all that be peopled, and peopled, too, with cruel, bloodthirsty savages, for aught we could tell to the contrary. While, therefore, I was exceedingly anxious, for reasons of my own, to get a nearer peep at the place without a moment’s unnecessary delay, I felt bound to point out to the ladies the absolute necessity for determining the question whether or not there were any inhabitants on the island before exposing them to the possible risk of a landing.The objections to an immediate landing on the part of the ladies did not, however, apply with equal force in the case of us of the sterner sex; I therefore ordered the gig to be lowered, and, arming myself and each of the crew with a brace of loaded revolvers, prepared to make a preliminary trip as far as the creek referred to in the cryptogram. Upon hearing me give the order to get the boat ready, Sir Edgar asked permission to accompany me; and a few minutes later we shoved off, and headed up the river.The waterway, as far up as we could see, maintained a tolerably even width of some two hundred yards, the deepest water being close alongside the western shore, which was very steep, and wooded clear down to the water’sedge. Here, with the assistance of the hand-lead, I found a minimum depth of two fathoms; but the bottom was very uneven, and in a few places I found as much as five fathoms of water. From these depths the bottom seemed to slope pretty uniformly upward towards the opposite or eastern bank, the slope of which was much more gentle, a narrow margin of very fine white sand intervening between the water and the deep, rich, chocolate-coloured soil. The varieties of trees and shrubs were countless, ranging all the way from the smallest and most delicate flowering plants to magnificent forest giants, some of which must have towered at least a hundred and fifty feet above the surface of the ground. Cocoa-nut palms formed a continuous fringe along the inner margin of the sandy beach; and beyond them were to be seen every imaginable species of tropical plant and tree, with foliage ranging in tint from the palest, most delicate green to deepest olive or purple black. The waving fronds of the delicate feathery bamboo were everywhere visible, while creepers in endless variety trailed their long cordlike stems and gaudy blossoms in all directions. The still, evening air vibrated with the continuous hissing buzz of countless millions of insects, and a few birds flitted noiselessly hither and thither among the gathering shadows; but no sign of a human form, not even the imprint of a footstep on the soft white sand, anywhere met my searching gaze.At a distance of about half a mile, or perhaps a little less, from the mouth of the river, the shore on our starboard hand merged into a low wooded point, round which we swept, out of the main channel, into a charming basin, some two miles wide, surrounded on every side by high land, sloping gently backward from the water’s edge, and magnificently broken by deep, precipitous ravines, some of which could be traced from the heart of the surrounding hills clear down to the water’s edge. The centre of the basin was occupied by an islet, roughly circular in shape, and about half a mile in diameter, as we discovered by pulling round it. This islet was the hiding-place of the treasure, if the cryptogram was to be believed; and I accordingly inspected it as narrowly as the swiftly gathering darkness would permit, so that I might carry a tolerably distinct impression of it in my mind’s eye, as an aid to the plan that I must now definitely form and arrange before the next sunrise. As may be supposed, I had by this time got the words of the cryptogram off by heart—and, indeed, had destroyed the translation, lest it should fall into other hands—I therefore knew exactly what I had to look for as a mark to guide me to the hiding-place of the treasure, and accordingly kept a very sharp lookout for “the obelisk rock.” There was only one rock to be seen on the islet that at all answered to this description, and that, so far as I could distinguish in the gloom, was a pointed, needle-like mass, forming the summit of a steep cliff that rose precipitously from the water’s edge and constituted the northern extremity of the islet. But on getting round to the other side I was vexed and chagrined to find that the whole surface of the islet on the southern side of this curious cliff was densely overgrown with trees and scrub, which would certainly have to be cut deeply into in order to arrive at the spot where the treasure was said to be buried. This condition of affairs, natural enough though it was, had somehow never occurred to me; I had fully expected to find the hiding-place located in an open space that might be conveniently traversed in any and every direction, enabling the situation of the treasure to be determined by the simple process of measuring off a thousand feet in a direction due south from the base of the obelisk rock. Possibly that might have been the condition of the islet at the period when the treasure was buried—indeed, it very probably was—but there had been ample time for the ground to have become overgrown since then; and now it was so densely covered with vegetation that it would be hopeless to think of getting at the hiding-place without the assistance of the men. And that meant the absolute overthrow of my plan to keep the recovery of the treasure a secret from them!What was to be done? I racked my brains during the whole of the long, hot, breathless night in a fruitless endeavour to devise some satisfactory way out of the difficulty, and arose from my sleepless bunk next morning with a splitting headache, and nothing in the shape of a settled plan beyond the determination to find a good long job for the men, the execution of which should afford me further time for reflection, and perhaps allow events to develop themselves.Acting, then, upon this resolution, I caused the gig to be brought alongside immediately after breakfast; and ordered the axes and shovels to be passed into her, at the same time issuing instructions for all hands except the cook and steward to get into her and go on shore with me. The men bustled about, nothing loth—for were they not going to get a change from the monotony of sea life, and, at the same time, provide themselves with the means of unlimited indulgence in more or less vicious enjoyment for the remainder of their lives?—and I noticed, with impotent anger, that, having at length arrived, as they supposed, at the goal of their villainous schemes, with the wealth which was to be the reward of their treachery all but within their grasp, as they believed, the restraint which they had hithertosorigorously imposed upon themselves was in a measure laid aside, and they began to reveal themselves, both in speech and in action, as the unscrupulous scoundrels that they were.I paid no attention, however, to anything I saw or heard, leaving them to believe, if they pleased, that I regarded their behaviour as a simple ebullition of high spirits at the prospect of a little recreation ashore; and passing my sextant and other paraphernalia carefully down into the boat, quickly followed them and gave the order to shove off.There were twelve of us, all told, in the boat; she was therefore pretty deep in the water. Notwithstanding which, so eager were the men to get at the treasure, that in less than ten minutes from the time of leaving the ship we were once more in the creek, and pulling toward its head or north-eastern corner, at which point I had noticed on the preceding evening that the timber appeared to be growing more thickly and heavily than elsewhere, and where, consequently, the task of penetrating it for any distance would involve the greatest labour and consume the most time.As we drew near the shore at this point I observed—what had escaped my notice on the preceding evening—that a small stream of beautifully clear, crystal water came brawling down through a steep, narrow ravine, and discharged itself into the creek exactly at the spot for which we were heading, and I at once resolved to avail myself of its presence as a means of deluding the men into the belief that they were working at the right spot.Accordingly, when the boat grounded upon the beach, I ordered everybody out of her, with the picks and shovels, and set all hands to work cutting pegs and long slender rods, under the direction of the boatswain, retaining Forbes and San Domingo, the negro, as assistants in my own especial part of the work. Within ten minutes, the fellows had cut all the pegs and rods I could possibly require; and then, looking carefully and anxiously about me, I at length fixed a stout peg, with the nicest accuracy, in the sand at its junction with the grass, and exactly at the edge of the stream. Then I sent men here and there with long wands, which I made them hold exactly perpendicular on the ground, adjusting their positions with the most finicking precision, until I had wrought them all firmly into the belief that the whole of this labour was gone through for the purpose of finding the exact spot where the treasure lay buried. Finally, I set out by compass, and indicated, by means of two long slender rods stuck upright into the sand, a line that would take them straight into the bush where it was thickest and most impenetrable, and told them to cut a straight line in that direction, exactly two thousand yards in length from a peg which I had driven at the margin of the bush.This task I entrusted to Rogers and the six other men, who struck me as being the blackest sheep of the flock; while, with Forbes, Joe Martin, Barr, Mckinley, Christianssen, and San Domingo, I took the boat, with a sufficient supply of axes and shovels, and made the best of my way to the southern side of the small islet upon which the treasure was said to be hidden.Upon our arrival at the desired spot, my impression of the preceding evening that it was entirely overgrown was fully confirmed, it proving to be literally impossible to find a place where a landing could be effected without first clearing away the scrub. There was this difference, however, between the growth on the islet and that at the spot where I had left the boatswain and his party at work, that whereas the latter consisted almost exclusively of huge trees, the former was composed largely of scrub, with only a few trees here and there, so that it would not be nearly so difficult to penetrate as the other. It was evident indeed to me at a glance, now that I had the full light of day to aid me in my inspection, that the growth upon the islet was of much more recent date than that upon any part of the main island in sight from that spot; a fact which tended to confirm my previous suspicion that at the time of the burial of the treasure the soil of the islet had been bare, or nearly so, of arboreal growth.The growth, however, was there now, and it constituted a very formidable difficulty, for how was I to identify a point exactly one thousand feet south of the obelisk rock, unless I could move freely over the ground for the purpose of obtaining my precise bearing and distance?Suddenly a brilliant idea struck me. Immediately opposite the point on the islet at which I wished to land, there was a broad strip of sandy beach, constituting indeed part of the margin of the basin, of which the islet formed the centre. Would it be possible to make my measurements from that point? There could be no harm in trying, at all events, and we accordingly pulled across the water, landing at a part of the beach that looked eminently promising. The first thing was to determine the direction of a line running due south from the topmost pinnacle of the obelisk rock, and after a few trials with the compass, I got this. My next act was to erect a line perpendicular to this along the sandy margin of the basin, which I accomplished with the aid of my sextant, taking care to make this second line as long as the nature of the ground would allow. Then, driving a peg into the sand at the intersection of these two lines, and another at the farther extremity of my second line, I had a right-angled triangle, whereof the two pegs and the obelisk rock marked the angles. I had now only to measure very carefully my second line, which I did by means of a surveyor’s tape measure, bought at Sydney for the purpose, and to take the angle between the perpendicular and the hypothenuse of my triangle, when I had the means of calculating all or any of the elements of the triangle that I desired. In this way, then, I ascertained that the pinnacle of the obelisk rock was exactly six thousand four hundred and seventy-seven feet due north of the peg I had driven into the sand to mark the intersection of my two lines. Then, returning to this same peg, I sent Forbes away to the islet in the boat, with instructions to set up one of the oars, with a white pocket-handkerchief attached to it, on the shore of the islet at the precise spot I should indicate to him by signal. This spot I arranged to be exactly in line with the peg and the obelisk rock; all three points, therefore, were in one straight line, the bearing of which was due north and south, while its northern extremity was the obelisk rock. My next task was to take an angle to the oar from the peg at which I had taken the angle to the obelisk rock, which enabled me to determine that the oar was three thousand eight hundred and two feet from the intersecting peg, and consequently two thousand six hundred and seventy-five feet from the obelisk rock. This completed all the data I required; for I had now only to drive a bold, conspicuous staff into the sand in place of my intersecting peg, and another into the ground on the islet where the oar now stood, and by cutting back into the scrub for a distance of one thousand six hundred and seventy-five feet toward the obelisk rock, using these two staves as guides to keep their line straight, the workers would reach a spot exactly a thousand feet south from the obelisk rock; or, in other words, the hiding-place of the treasure. The two guiding-staves were soon fixed, and then, leaving Forbes to superintend the operations of Joe, Barr, and Mckinley, I replaced my instruments in the boat and, with Christianssen and San Domingo at the oars, paddled on board the barque for the purpose of bringing Sir Edgar and the whole of his party on shore, in order that they might indulge in a run on the beautiful sandy strand of the basin, and enjoy a nearer view of the entrancing loveliness of this exquisite gem of the Pacific.
During the succeeding watch, I had leisure to take a careful mental review of Joe’s story, and the conclusion at which I arrived was that the man Moore, having failed in his endeavour to seduce the original crew of theEsmeraldafrom their duty, had, on his arrival at Sydney, no sooner recognised the probability of their desertion—which, for aught I knew to the contrary, he might very possibly have contributed to bring about—than he must have devoted himself to the task of collecting the party of men whose wiles I had now to circumvent. What a patient, crafty fellow the man had proved himself to be! It really appeared as though he must have had, almost from the outset of the voyage, some suspicion as to the character of the cryptogram over which he had seen me puzzling so often—or might he not have gathered its nature from a chance word or two overheard while I had been discussing the subject with Sir Edgar?—for he no sooner became aware in a general way of its contents than he was ready with a plan by which to turn the adventure to his own advantage. He was persevering, too; for that plan had no sooner failed than he must have gone to work to formulate another, so skilfully devised, and so carefully carried through that, but for Joe’s devoted fidelity, it must have infallibly succeeded. Indeed, I felt by no means satisfied that they would not succeed, even now. True, their designs, as revealed to Joe, might be very easily frustrated; but there was an unpleasant doubt in my mind as to thebona fidesof that revelation. I could scarcely believe that men who had already exhibited such indisputable proof of extreme caution and steadfast self-control could be so easily imposed upon as they appeared to have been by Joe! What if they had seen through his devices, and had suspected his intentions? Would they not, in that case, have realised that our suspicions were aroused? and might they not have merelyfeignedto have fallen into Joe’s trap, and have confided to him a purely fictitious statement of their plans, concocted for the express purpose of throwing us off our guard and leading us astray? Taking into account the deep guile that had prompted them to adopt and consistently maintain a course of the most orderly and irreproachable behaviour as the most likely means of blinding me to and averting the faintest suspicion of their nefarious designs, I could not help feeling that such a line of action on their part was only too probable; and, in casting about in my mind for some effectual method of subverting their plans, I fully realised that I should have to take this contingency into consideration, while preparing also a counterplot to that revealed by the man Rogers to Joe. Of one thing, and one thing only, could I be certain, which was thatnobody—not even myself—knew the amount of the treasure; and it appeared to me that upon this fact must I base my plans. These reflections, given above in a very condensed form, fully occupied my mind during the first hour and a half of my watch, and were only interrupted by the appearance in the eastern quarter of that first faint paling of the darkness which heralded the dawn of a new day. This temporarily diverted my thoughts into a new channel; for, upon solving the enigma of the cryptogram, my first act had been to consult a chart of the Pacific, with the resulting discovery that no such island as that referred to in the Saint Leger document was to be found upon it. Now, the ship’s position on the previous noon, and her run since then, were such that if the morning happened to break clear, the island ought to be just visible, right ahead, at daybreak, provided, of course, that the man who secreted the treasure had made no mistake in his calculations. On the one hand, I thought it probable that, considering the important issues at stake, the utmost care would be taken to verify the position of the island beyond all possibility of error; while, on the other, was the curious fact that no such island—not even a rock, or indeed shoal water—appeared on the chart in the position indicated. This circumstance, coupled with my knowledge of the imperfect character of the instruments in use by navigators of the period at which the cryptogram had been written, caused me now to experience no little curiosity and anxiety as to what the approaching daylight might reveal.
I was not to be left long in suspense. We were in the tropics, where the light comes and goes with a rush, a few minutes only intervening between broad day and deepest night. The first faint streak of scarcely perceptible pallor along the verge of the eastern horizon on our starboard bow lengthened and widened, and grew more pronounced, even as I gazed upon it, until it became a broad segment of cold, colourless light, insensibly melting out of the circumscribing darkness. Then a faint, delicate tone of softest primrose began to steal through it, quickly strengthening and brightening as the light spread upward and right and left, paling the stars one by one, until they dwindled away and vanished in the soft, rich blue that was swiftly chasing the darkness across the sky. Anon, a warm, rich, rosy flush began to pervade the primrose tones of the eastern horizon, against which the level line of the ocean’s marge cut sharply in tones of deepest indigo; while, overhead, the brightening blue was delicately mottled with a whole archipelago of thin, fleecy cloudlets, pink tinged, and bordered along their lower edges with purest gold, that were mysteriously floating into view, apparently from illimitable space. Then from that point on the horizon where the deepening rose colour glowed most brilliantly, up shot a single white ray perpendicularly toward the zenith, narrow and well defined where it sprang from the horizon, and broadening as it soared aloft until it became lost among the lowest tier of clouds, now deeply tinged with dyes of richest crimson. This single ray had scarcely made itself apparent ere it was followed by others radiating fan-wise from the same spot; and in another instant a spark of golden flame flashed across the sea from the horizon, at the point of junction of the rays, tingeing the small wave-crests in its wake with ruddy gold that deepened first into a line and then into a broad path of shimmering golden radiance, as the burning rim of the sun soared slowly out of the purple sea.
At the same instant, the man who had the lookout, and who had stationed himself on the topgallant forecastle, right in the eyes of the ship, turned sharply round, facing the poop, and reported—
“Land ho! right ahead.”
I had been so completely absorbed in contemplation of the magnificent spectacle of the sunrise that, for the moment, I had entirely forgotten the island, and everything connected with it; but the cry of the lookout brought it back to my mind with a flash, and, moving to the mizzen-rigging, and springing upon a hen-coop, I directed my gaze straight ahead, with my hand over my eyes to shield them from the dazzle of the sun.
Yes, there it was, undoubtedly; a faint, pinkish-grey shape, right over the starboard cat-head, as I then stood; a low hummock on the left, with a hill next it, the outline of which, even at that distance, bore a striking resemblance to a man’s nose, the upper lip on the right of it showing just clear of the horizon. Yes; there was the treasure island, beyond all question! The next point to be determined was, whether the treasure still lay buried there; and if so, how was I to obtain and retain possession of it?
Of one thing I felt morally certain, which was that, as soon as the men felt assured that the whole of the treasure was on board, they would take the ship from me, either by force or guile, if they could. It was of course open to me to make a fight for it, if I chose; but, even assuming that I could reckon upon Sir Edgar’s assistance—as I felt sure I could—that would make only four of us to oppose eleven men, who, I had no manner of doubt, would prove as resolute and determined in a stand-up fight as they had already shown themselves to be in the pursuit of their organised plans. The odds were nearly three to one against us. Opposed to these, with, for our antagonists, resolute men, whose knowledge of the consequences that must inevitably follow upon an unsuccessful attempt at piracy would nerve them to desperation—men who were unquestionably full of brute courage, and who, moreover, were doubtless as well armed as ourselves—was I justified in entertaining the slightest hope of success in the event of my submitting the matter to the arbitrament of battle? The answer to this question was an unqualified “No!”
If, then, it was hopeless to expect that a resort to force would enable me to retain my property, my freedom, and the freedom and property, ay, perhaps even the lives of those who, in such a crisis as this, would naturally look to me for the preservation of both, I must resort to guile. I mortally hate anything that in the slightest degree savours of deception, either in words or conduct, and have made it an invariable rule never to engage in any transaction needing the one or the other for its successful accomplishment; but here was a case in which I had no choice but to meet guile with guile. How was it to be done? Possibly, if the treasure happened to be in a compact form, and easily accessible, Forbes, Joe, and myself might be able to secure it and convey it on board the ship, unknown to the men, while they were busily engaged in digging for it elsewhere—for, now that they were aware of its existence, it seemed to me that my best chance of success lay in employing them in the search, while taking care that none of them should find it. This would naturally lead them to the conclusion that, if my document were not an ingenious hoax, the treasure had already been discovered and secured by somebody else.
This plan rather took my fancy. It was simple, feasible, and demanded no elaborate system of deception; the men would simply be set to dig upon a certain spot, and, failing, after a sufficiently exhaustive search, to find anything, the digging would be abandoned, and they would be sent to various more or less distant parts of the island to cut sandal-wood. The more I thought of it, the better I liked it; and when, later on, during the forenoon, I found an opportunity to talk it over with Sir Edgar and Forbes—having previously related to them the substance of Joe’s communication made to me during the middle watch—they agreed with me that, failing a better scheme, they saw no reason why it should not be successful. Sir Edgar, as I had anticipated, declared himself ready to act in any way that I might suggest, at a moment’s notice; and, now that he had had time to think over my former communication to him, and to grow accustomed to the idea of a coming contest, either of strength or wits, with the men, was as eager for the fray as a schoolboy is for the great cricket-match of the year.
Meanwhile, the wind had slightly freshened with the rising of the sun, and the ship was gliding along upon a taut bowline, under all plain sail, at a speed of about six knots, heading up about a point and a half to windward of the northern extremity of the island. We were approaching it from the south-west—the direction mentioned in my ancestor’s cryptogram—and as we gradually rose it above the horizon it was curious to note how exact a resemblance its outline bore to the profile of an upturned human face lying prone along the water. It was so striking that even the children remarked upon it; while, as for the men, they could scarcely remove their eyes from it, thoughtheirinterest in the place was doubtless founded more upon the wealth they hoped to find upon it than upon its very singular appearance. I noted this morning, without appearing to do so, that there was a great deal of animated conversation going on upon the forecastle, accompanied by many stealthy glances toward the poop; while the late steward—now sweltering in the heat of the galley, and of his hirsute disguise—was being continually appealed to. Now that I knew this man’s secret I was filled with astonishment that I had not immediately penetrated it; for, disguise his features as he might, he could not divest himself of the sly, stealthy way in which he used his eyes, nor of the noiseless, treacherous way in which he moved. I had noted these characteristics in him as far back as the day on which he had signed articles at Sydney; yet, strange to say, familiar as they were to me, I had never for a moment suspected his identity, probably because, when I happened to think of him at all, I assumed as a matter of course that he would naturally make the best of his way to the gold-fields. Of course, since we had been at sea, his avocation as cook had confined him so closely to the galley that I had rarely seen him; and upon the rare occasions when he had been obliged to present himself in full view my thoughts had usually been so busy upon other matters that I had taken little or no notice of him. Indeed, I shrewdly suspected that it was the comparative privacy of the galley that had led him to choose the disagreeable functions of ship’s cook.
All that day, until three o’clock in the afternoon, we glided gently along over a smooth, sparkling sea, toward the island, noting with keen interest its various features as they imperceptibly resolved themselves out of the hazy blue tint that it had worn in the distance. The first marked change that occurred in its appearance was the breaking-up of the flat silhouette into a series of softly shadowed markings which indicated the shapes of the hills and valleys, the slopes and ravines into which its surface was broken. Then, as the sun swept over it and round toward its western side, the light fell more strongly upon its hillsides; its shadows grew deeper, and an all-pervading tone of green gave evidence of its exceeding fertility. Later still, the green became broken up into an infinite variety of shades; while the swelling rounded outlines that stood out from and yet indicated these multitudinous tints, revealed the fact that the island was densely wooded to its very summit. By six bells in the afternoon we had neared it to within three miles, and were enabled to see that its northern extremity was bold and precipitous, with naked, rocky cliffs, against the base of which the white surf chafed and roared with a ceaseless thunder that reached our ears even at that distance. The south-western extremity, while as bold as the northern, and almost as precipitous, was wooded right down to the water’s edge; while from the lofty hill, that in the distance had borne the appearance of a gigantic human nose, there was an irregular but general slope toward the south-western shore; the entrance to the river mentioned in the cryptogram being clearly indicated by a low projecting point stretching southward from the bold cliffs marking the northern boundary of the island.
Having satisfactorily made out the mouth of the river, I caused the helm to be shifted, and we bore away for our anchorage, which was reached about an hour later, in a small estuary situate at the southern extremity of the island, affording perfect shelter from all winds from south-west round by north and east to south-east.
By the time that the hands had got the canvas stowed, yards squared, running gear hauled taut and coiled down, and decks cleared up generally, it was five o’clock in the evening; and the shadows were already beginning to deepen on the western side of the ravine along which the river flowed, while its eastern slopes were glowing brilliantly in the warm orange tones of the evening sunlight. It chanced that we had dropped our anchor at the precise spot which afforded us a clear view up the gently winding river for a distance of something like a quarter of a mile, and never in all my life had I looked upon a more lovely scene than the one that then delighted our eyes. The so-called “river” was really a small arm of the sea formed by a beautiful ravine—the bottom of which lay below the sea level—dividing the southern portion of the island into two unequal parts; and as the western side of this ravine was high and steep, while the eastern side sloped gently but unevenly up from the water until it merged in the high ground beyond, the whole surface of the island being finely broken and densely wooded, the contrasting effects of brilliant sunshine and soft purple shadow, with the multitudinous tints and endless varieties of foliage, vividly marked in the foreground and insensibly merging into a delicious, soft, misty grey over the distant heights, combined to form a picture the charming, fairy-like beauty of which it is as impossible to describe as it was entrancing to look upon.
So lovely indeed was it that I found it hard to resist the entreaties of Lady Emily and her sister that I would lower a boat and take them for a short pull up the river before sunset. It was necessary, however, that our first visit to this lovely island paradise should be made with all due circumspection; for although no sign or trace of inhabitants had as yet been discovered, the place might for all that be peopled, and peopled, too, with cruel, bloodthirsty savages, for aught we could tell to the contrary. While, therefore, I was exceedingly anxious, for reasons of my own, to get a nearer peep at the place without a moment’s unnecessary delay, I felt bound to point out to the ladies the absolute necessity for determining the question whether or not there were any inhabitants on the island before exposing them to the possible risk of a landing.
The objections to an immediate landing on the part of the ladies did not, however, apply with equal force in the case of us of the sterner sex; I therefore ordered the gig to be lowered, and, arming myself and each of the crew with a brace of loaded revolvers, prepared to make a preliminary trip as far as the creek referred to in the cryptogram. Upon hearing me give the order to get the boat ready, Sir Edgar asked permission to accompany me; and a few minutes later we shoved off, and headed up the river.
The waterway, as far up as we could see, maintained a tolerably even width of some two hundred yards, the deepest water being close alongside the western shore, which was very steep, and wooded clear down to the water’sedge. Here, with the assistance of the hand-lead, I found a minimum depth of two fathoms; but the bottom was very uneven, and in a few places I found as much as five fathoms of water. From these depths the bottom seemed to slope pretty uniformly upward towards the opposite or eastern bank, the slope of which was much more gentle, a narrow margin of very fine white sand intervening between the water and the deep, rich, chocolate-coloured soil. The varieties of trees and shrubs were countless, ranging all the way from the smallest and most delicate flowering plants to magnificent forest giants, some of which must have towered at least a hundred and fifty feet above the surface of the ground. Cocoa-nut palms formed a continuous fringe along the inner margin of the sandy beach; and beyond them were to be seen every imaginable species of tropical plant and tree, with foliage ranging in tint from the palest, most delicate green to deepest olive or purple black. The waving fronds of the delicate feathery bamboo were everywhere visible, while creepers in endless variety trailed their long cordlike stems and gaudy blossoms in all directions. The still, evening air vibrated with the continuous hissing buzz of countless millions of insects, and a few birds flitted noiselessly hither and thither among the gathering shadows; but no sign of a human form, not even the imprint of a footstep on the soft white sand, anywhere met my searching gaze.
At a distance of about half a mile, or perhaps a little less, from the mouth of the river, the shore on our starboard hand merged into a low wooded point, round which we swept, out of the main channel, into a charming basin, some two miles wide, surrounded on every side by high land, sloping gently backward from the water’s edge, and magnificently broken by deep, precipitous ravines, some of which could be traced from the heart of the surrounding hills clear down to the water’s edge. The centre of the basin was occupied by an islet, roughly circular in shape, and about half a mile in diameter, as we discovered by pulling round it. This islet was the hiding-place of the treasure, if the cryptogram was to be believed; and I accordingly inspected it as narrowly as the swiftly gathering darkness would permit, so that I might carry a tolerably distinct impression of it in my mind’s eye, as an aid to the plan that I must now definitely form and arrange before the next sunrise. As may be supposed, I had by this time got the words of the cryptogram off by heart—and, indeed, had destroyed the translation, lest it should fall into other hands—I therefore knew exactly what I had to look for as a mark to guide me to the hiding-place of the treasure, and accordingly kept a very sharp lookout for “the obelisk rock.” There was only one rock to be seen on the islet that at all answered to this description, and that, so far as I could distinguish in the gloom, was a pointed, needle-like mass, forming the summit of a steep cliff that rose precipitously from the water’s edge and constituted the northern extremity of the islet. But on getting round to the other side I was vexed and chagrined to find that the whole surface of the islet on the southern side of this curious cliff was densely overgrown with trees and scrub, which would certainly have to be cut deeply into in order to arrive at the spot where the treasure was said to be buried. This condition of affairs, natural enough though it was, had somehow never occurred to me; I had fully expected to find the hiding-place located in an open space that might be conveniently traversed in any and every direction, enabling the situation of the treasure to be determined by the simple process of measuring off a thousand feet in a direction due south from the base of the obelisk rock. Possibly that might have been the condition of the islet at the period when the treasure was buried—indeed, it very probably was—but there had been ample time for the ground to have become overgrown since then; and now it was so densely covered with vegetation that it would be hopeless to think of getting at the hiding-place without the assistance of the men. And that meant the absolute overthrow of my plan to keep the recovery of the treasure a secret from them!
What was to be done? I racked my brains during the whole of the long, hot, breathless night in a fruitless endeavour to devise some satisfactory way out of the difficulty, and arose from my sleepless bunk next morning with a splitting headache, and nothing in the shape of a settled plan beyond the determination to find a good long job for the men, the execution of which should afford me further time for reflection, and perhaps allow events to develop themselves.
Acting, then, upon this resolution, I caused the gig to be brought alongside immediately after breakfast; and ordered the axes and shovels to be passed into her, at the same time issuing instructions for all hands except the cook and steward to get into her and go on shore with me. The men bustled about, nothing loth—for were they not going to get a change from the monotony of sea life, and, at the same time, provide themselves with the means of unlimited indulgence in more or less vicious enjoyment for the remainder of their lives?—and I noticed, with impotent anger, that, having at length arrived, as they supposed, at the goal of their villainous schemes, with the wealth which was to be the reward of their treachery all but within their grasp, as they believed, the restraint which they had hithertosorigorously imposed upon themselves was in a measure laid aside, and they began to reveal themselves, both in speech and in action, as the unscrupulous scoundrels that they were.
I paid no attention, however, to anything I saw or heard, leaving them to believe, if they pleased, that I regarded their behaviour as a simple ebullition of high spirits at the prospect of a little recreation ashore; and passing my sextant and other paraphernalia carefully down into the boat, quickly followed them and gave the order to shove off.
There were twelve of us, all told, in the boat; she was therefore pretty deep in the water. Notwithstanding which, so eager were the men to get at the treasure, that in less than ten minutes from the time of leaving the ship we were once more in the creek, and pulling toward its head or north-eastern corner, at which point I had noticed on the preceding evening that the timber appeared to be growing more thickly and heavily than elsewhere, and where, consequently, the task of penetrating it for any distance would involve the greatest labour and consume the most time.
As we drew near the shore at this point I observed—what had escaped my notice on the preceding evening—that a small stream of beautifully clear, crystal water came brawling down through a steep, narrow ravine, and discharged itself into the creek exactly at the spot for which we were heading, and I at once resolved to avail myself of its presence as a means of deluding the men into the belief that they were working at the right spot.
Accordingly, when the boat grounded upon the beach, I ordered everybody out of her, with the picks and shovels, and set all hands to work cutting pegs and long slender rods, under the direction of the boatswain, retaining Forbes and San Domingo, the negro, as assistants in my own especial part of the work. Within ten minutes, the fellows had cut all the pegs and rods I could possibly require; and then, looking carefully and anxiously about me, I at length fixed a stout peg, with the nicest accuracy, in the sand at its junction with the grass, and exactly at the edge of the stream. Then I sent men here and there with long wands, which I made them hold exactly perpendicular on the ground, adjusting their positions with the most finicking precision, until I had wrought them all firmly into the belief that the whole of this labour was gone through for the purpose of finding the exact spot where the treasure lay buried. Finally, I set out by compass, and indicated, by means of two long slender rods stuck upright into the sand, a line that would take them straight into the bush where it was thickest and most impenetrable, and told them to cut a straight line in that direction, exactly two thousand yards in length from a peg which I had driven at the margin of the bush.
This task I entrusted to Rogers and the six other men, who struck me as being the blackest sheep of the flock; while, with Forbes, Joe Martin, Barr, Mckinley, Christianssen, and San Domingo, I took the boat, with a sufficient supply of axes and shovels, and made the best of my way to the southern side of the small islet upon which the treasure was said to be hidden.
Upon our arrival at the desired spot, my impression of the preceding evening that it was entirely overgrown was fully confirmed, it proving to be literally impossible to find a place where a landing could be effected without first clearing away the scrub. There was this difference, however, between the growth on the islet and that at the spot where I had left the boatswain and his party at work, that whereas the latter consisted almost exclusively of huge trees, the former was composed largely of scrub, with only a few trees here and there, so that it would not be nearly so difficult to penetrate as the other. It was evident indeed to me at a glance, now that I had the full light of day to aid me in my inspection, that the growth upon the islet was of much more recent date than that upon any part of the main island in sight from that spot; a fact which tended to confirm my previous suspicion that at the time of the burial of the treasure the soil of the islet had been bare, or nearly so, of arboreal growth.
The growth, however, was there now, and it constituted a very formidable difficulty, for how was I to identify a point exactly one thousand feet south of the obelisk rock, unless I could move freely over the ground for the purpose of obtaining my precise bearing and distance?
Suddenly a brilliant idea struck me. Immediately opposite the point on the islet at which I wished to land, there was a broad strip of sandy beach, constituting indeed part of the margin of the basin, of which the islet formed the centre. Would it be possible to make my measurements from that point? There could be no harm in trying, at all events, and we accordingly pulled across the water, landing at a part of the beach that looked eminently promising. The first thing was to determine the direction of a line running due south from the topmost pinnacle of the obelisk rock, and after a few trials with the compass, I got this. My next act was to erect a line perpendicular to this along the sandy margin of the basin, which I accomplished with the aid of my sextant, taking care to make this second line as long as the nature of the ground would allow. Then, driving a peg into the sand at the intersection of these two lines, and another at the farther extremity of my second line, I had a right-angled triangle, whereof the two pegs and the obelisk rock marked the angles. I had now only to measure very carefully my second line, which I did by means of a surveyor’s tape measure, bought at Sydney for the purpose, and to take the angle between the perpendicular and the hypothenuse of my triangle, when I had the means of calculating all or any of the elements of the triangle that I desired. In this way, then, I ascertained that the pinnacle of the obelisk rock was exactly six thousand four hundred and seventy-seven feet due north of the peg I had driven into the sand to mark the intersection of my two lines. Then, returning to this same peg, I sent Forbes away to the islet in the boat, with instructions to set up one of the oars, with a white pocket-handkerchief attached to it, on the shore of the islet at the precise spot I should indicate to him by signal. This spot I arranged to be exactly in line with the peg and the obelisk rock; all three points, therefore, were in one straight line, the bearing of which was due north and south, while its northern extremity was the obelisk rock. My next task was to take an angle to the oar from the peg at which I had taken the angle to the obelisk rock, which enabled me to determine that the oar was three thousand eight hundred and two feet from the intersecting peg, and consequently two thousand six hundred and seventy-five feet from the obelisk rock. This completed all the data I required; for I had now only to drive a bold, conspicuous staff into the sand in place of my intersecting peg, and another into the ground on the islet where the oar now stood, and by cutting back into the scrub for a distance of one thousand six hundred and seventy-five feet toward the obelisk rock, using these two staves as guides to keep their line straight, the workers would reach a spot exactly a thousand feet south from the obelisk rock; or, in other words, the hiding-place of the treasure. The two guiding-staves were soon fixed, and then, leaving Forbes to superintend the operations of Joe, Barr, and Mckinley, I replaced my instruments in the boat and, with Christianssen and San Domingo at the oars, paddled on board the barque for the purpose of bringing Sir Edgar and the whole of his party on shore, in order that they might indulge in a run on the beautiful sandy strand of the basin, and enjoy a nearer view of the entrancing loveliness of this exquisite gem of the Pacific.