Chapter Twelve.The Solution of the Cryptogram.I was at this time no nearer to the unriddling of Richard Saint Leger’s cryptogram than I had been at the moment when I held it in my hand for the first time; but now that I was so far on my way toward the spot where the treasure was supposed to still lie hidden, I resolved that I would not return until I had succeeded in deciphering the document and testing the truth of whatever statement it might be found to contain. I had a shrewd suspicion that the hiding-place of the treasure would prove to be in one of the thousand islets of the vast Pacific; and I accordingly determined to confine my operations to those waters until I had some good reason for going elsewhere. Our hatches were consequently no sooner off than I set about inquiring for freights to one or another of the Pacific ports. I speedily discovered that the most advantageous freights offering were for Australia; and, it having leaked out that the littleEsmeraldawas something of a clipper, I succeeded, ere we had been in the river a week, in obtaining an excellent freight for Sydney, with the promise of quick despatch.This matter arranged to my satisfaction, I had a little leisure on my hands; and the first use I made of it was to call upon the Desmonds at their hotel, in fulfilment of a promise extracted from me by them when they were leaving the ship. I found them just about to sit down to luncheon, at which meal they insisted that I should join them; and we had no sooner settled ourselves at the table than I was pelted with questions as to what I had been doing with myself since our parting; why had I not called before? had I decided upon my future movements? etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. I replied by enumerating a few of the infinitude of business matters that a shipmaster usually has to attend to immediately upon his arrival in port—especially if that port be a foreign one—and, in conclusion, told them that, having resolved to remain in Eastern waters until I should have either discovered the interpretation of my ancestor’s cryptogram, or should be driven to abandon all hope of ever solving the riddle, I had accepted a freight for Sydney, New South Wales; jestingly adding that they had better make up their minds to take passage with me.As I said this I observed a quick interchange of glances between Sir Edgar, his wife, and Miss Merrivale; and then the former remarked—“Well now, captain, it is very singular, but it is nevertheless a fact, that no longer ago than this morning at breakfast we practically made up our minds that, before returning home, we would go on to Australia, and see something of that wonderful country. An old friend and college chum of mine has settled there and gone in for sheep-farming upon a large scale, and, our conversation happening to turn upon him a few days ago, my wife made the curious discovery that he is the man who married the bosom friend and companion of her boarding-school days; the result being that a half jocular proposal of mine that we should extend our wanderings to Australia and beat up the quarters of these good folk has crystallised into the serious resolution to do so, provided that suitable passenger accommodation to take us there can be met with. This accident of your having accepted a freight for Sydney settles that part of the question, of course, for we will go with you—that is, if you are willing to have us again.”I protested, heartily and truthfully, that no proposal could give me greater pleasure. Whereupon it was then and there arranged that the party should have the whole of the saloon accommodation as before; and ere I left them that afternoon, Sir Edgar—asking me to roughly calculate for him the probable date of our arrival—sat down and wrote to his friend, apprising him of the determination arrived at, and naming the approximate date at which the party might be looked for.This arrangement was a most agreeable, as well as a most advantageous one for me; for it at once insured me the disposal of all my saloon accommodation for the passage, and, at the same time, the continued society of those who had already not only proved themselves to be most agreeable, companionable people, but whom I had by this time learned to regard as staunch personal friends.Nothing worthy of mention occurred to mark our sojourn in the Canton river; I need, therefore, only state that, having duly discharged our inward cargo, and received our outward freight, we sailed for Sydney on the day three weeks following the date of the arrangement come to by Sir Edgar and his party to take passage in theEsmeralda.The passage proved as uneventful as the previous one had been the reverse; only two incidents occurring during its progress of sufficient moment to demand especial mention. At the time of their occurrence I considered only one of them worth the distinction of an entry in my diary; but subsequent events proved that they were both destined to exercise almost equally important influences upon my fortunes and those of my friends the Desmond party.The first—and what seemed to me infinitely the most important—of these was nothing less than my discovery of the long-sought key to Richard Saint Leger’s secret cipher; and it was brought about in a manner so singular and unexpected that I must leave the explanation of the matter to the psychological student, it being altogether beyond the comprehension of such a simple, matter-of-fact, unlearned seaman as myself.It happened thus. I fully realised that it would be impossible for me to continue cruising to and fro in those Eastern waters for an indefinite period; I knew that a moment must sooner or later arrive when the force of circumstances would compel me to shape a course once more for England; and it already appeared to me highly probable that the arrival of that moment would prove to be coincident with that of the arrival of the ship in Sydney Harbour. I consequently became increasingly anxious to discover the interpretation of the cryptogram before the conclusion of the passage upon which we were then engaged. No sooner, therefore, were we fairly at sea than I devoted myself in grim and serious earnest to my quest for the key that was to unlock the secrets of the exasperating cipher. The document consisted, as the reader will remember, entirely of long, unbroken rows of figures—with the exception of a rather singular sketch in the midst of the text, which I took to be a representation of the island whereon the treasure was said to have been secreted, as viewed from certain bearings—and I knew that these figures must stand in lieu of a certain arrangement of the letters of the alphabet, forming words. I had early noted the somewhat curious fact that there was but one solitary nought throughout the document; but that only helped me so far as to render me morally certain that the letters of the text could scarcely be represented by units; and, taking this as my initial theory, I attempted every other combination of numbers that either my ingenuity or my fancy could suggest. In vain; I could hit upon no arrangement of numbers that, when transposed into letters, would give me a single intelligible word, either in English or any other language with which I had the slightest acquaintance. I at length grew so thoroughly worried over the matter that my nerves became sensibly affected; I turned irritable, and began to suffer from repeated attacks of extreme anxiety and depression; my appetite failed me, and I became a victim to the torment of insomnia.In this condition of mind and body I one night retired to my cabin after a day of petty worries, in which everything and everybody seemed to have been at cross-purposes with me, and—utterly worn out with the prolonged tension upon my nerves—ultimately subsided into a fitful, restless, nightmare kind of slumber, during which I continued in my dreams the researches upon which my thoughts had now been for nearly three weeks concentrated. Over and over again did I seem to arrange upon paper an experimental system of numbering the alphabet, in the hope of obtaining some intelligible result; and at length, to my great astonishment and inexpressible delight, methought I found one. In feverish haste I—still in my dream—set to work upon the translation of the document, and was progressing swimmingly, when a sharp rapping upon my state-room door, and the steward’s voice announcing, “Six bells, sir,” (the time at which I was regularly called every morning), awoke me; and in that same instant I lost all recollection of every particular of my dream, remembering only that in it I really seemed to have at last found the solution of the hitherto inexplicable enigma.Seriously annoyed at so inopportune an interruption to a dream that I quite regarded as a revelation, and vexed at my inability to recollect any more of the process of translation which I had followed than that it was an entirely novel one, I took my usual salt-water bath, dressed, and in due course sat down to breakfast, all the while striving desperately but unsuccessfully to recall the lost clue. My passengers observed my preoccupation, and endeavoured—for some time unavailingly—to withdraw me from it; at length, however, the consciousness dawned upon me that my peculiar behaviour must appear to them decidedly discourteous. I therefore aroused myself, threw off my abstraction, and apologised; explaining that I had been endeavouring to recall the details of a dream in which I seemed to have discovered the long-sought key to the secret of my hidden treasure.“A dream!” exclaimed Miss Merrivale, delighted. “Oh, captain,praytell us all about it; it may help you to remember.”I had no such hope, having already racked my brain until it seemed to reel, and all to no purpose; but it would have been childish to have refused the request. I therefore began by telling them how that I had retired on the preceding night with my mind full of the subject; how I had lain tossing restlessly, hour after hour, striving to think out some arrangement or system that I had not yet tried; and how eventually I had sunk into a feverish, nightmare slumber in which my brain continued its arduous, painful search for the key of the problem.“At length,” continued I, “an idea came to me; and, taking a sheet of paper, I—I—Why, by all that is wonderful,I have it again!”And, springing from my chair, to the no small consternation of my companions, who evidently thought I had suddenly gone demented, I rushed away to my state-room and, seizing a sheet of paper, jotted down the system that had just recurred to my memory. Then, heedless of my unfinished breakfast and everything else, I drew out the precious document itself, and, using the key that had come to me in such an extraordinary manner, soon discovered, to my inexpressible delight, that I really was at last upon the right track. I met with a few difficulties, it was true; but, braced-up and encouraged by what I had already achieved, I speedily surmounted them, and, after somewhat more than an hour’s patient labour, succeeded in evolving the following:—“Latitude 3 degrees 40 minutes South; longitude 139 degrees 18 minutes West. Approached from the south-west the island, at a distance of fifteen leagues, bears the exact likeness of the face of a man floating on the water. Steer for the hollow between mouth and chin, and ye shall find a river, which boldly enter, and sail up it a distance of three furlongs to the creek on starboard hand; pass into the creek and land on the island. The treasure lies buried at a spot one thousand feet due south from the base of the obelisk rock.”I was so elated at this discovery, the mental relief and exhilaration were so great that, in the exuberance of my delight, I felt constrained to acquaint my friends with my success; and rushing up on the poop with the cryptogram and its rough translation in my hand, I sat down by the open skylight, close to which Sir Edgar and Lady Emily were seated, and presenting the baronet with the documents, said—“There, Sir Edgar, read that; and never hereafter dare to assert that there is nothing in dreams!”“I do not remember that I have ever yet made the assertion,” he retorted laughingly. “But do you really mean to say that you have at length mastered the secret of the cipher?” as he took the paper from me, and forthwith read it aloud for the benefit of his wife and Miss Merrivale, the latter having joined us at her sister’s call.“Well,” exclaimed Lady Emily, when her husband had finished, “it is really wonderful! quite the kind of thing that one reads of in books but does not believe, because one seldom or never meets with anything like it in real life. But so many strange things have happened during this eventful voyage of ours, that I shall never again be incredulous of anything.”“Quite so, my dear,” agreed Sir Edgar. “Never commit yourself to the statement that you disbelieve anything. To refuse credence simply because one cannot understand, or because to our limited understanding the occurrence seems unlikely or impossible, is an infallible indication of ignorance. The wider our experience, and the deeper our knowledge, the more ready are we to admit that there may be many wonders that have never come within the limits of our ken, and about which we know nothing. But, about the key to the cryptogram, what is it? You must tell us that, you know, Saint Leger, in consideration of our own unsuccessful efforts to help you. Besides, the knowledge of such a difficult cipher as that is really worth having; who can say how soon, or under what circumstances, it might be found useful for purposes of secret communication?”“Oh, it is ridiculously simple, when you know it,” said I. “All you have to do is to number each letter of the alphabet consecutively, beginning with A and calling it eleven. Then, with the cryptogram before you, you divide the figures into series of four, each four figures representing a letter. Subtract the first pair of figures from the second, and the remainder gives you the number of the letter as you have it in your key. For example: the first four figures in the document are 1133; that is to say, eleven and thirty-three. The difference between them is twenty-two, which, you see, represents the letter L in the key. Then take the next four figures, treating them in the same way, and so on throughout the document. One great advantage of such an arrangement appears to me to be that, however many times the same letter occurs in a document, it need never be represented twice in exactly the same way, which certainly must greatly tend to preserve the secrecy of the cipher. There are no spaces, you observe, to mark the divisions between the several words; but that offers no difficulty whatever when one possesses the key; while—to my cost I know it—it adds tremendously to the difficulty when one does not. Then, again, the figures of the latitude and longitude are given just as they would be in an ordinary document, which brought me completely to a standstill for a little while, until I happily guessed at the explanation; but after passing these stumbling-blocks, the rest was perfectly plain sailing.”“Quite so,” acquiesced Sir Edgar. “It is simple enough when it has been explained; but a sufficiently ingenious thing for all that, in proof of which we have the fact that it has completely puzzled us all for months; and I really believe, Saint Leger, that, but for your wonderful dream, it would have continued to puzzle you to the end of time. I congratulate you heartily upon your good fortune.”“And I;” “And I,” simultaneously exclaimed Lady Emily and her sister.“And now,” continued the baronet, “what are your plans with regard to the matter? Will you still go on to Sydney, and discharge your cargo before attempting to secure your treasure, or will you make a détour, and prosecute your search for it forthwith?”“Oh, of course I must fulfil my present obligations before I attempt to do anything toward recovering the treasure,” said I. “When I have done that—when I have safely landed you all on the wharf at Sydney, and have discharged my cargo, I shall well ballast the ship and clear for the Pacific in search of a cargo of sandal-wood. I shall of course make it my first business to secure the treasure; but, in order to keep up appearances, I shall also collect what sandal-wood I can find without very much trouble, and proceed with it to China, from whence I shall take home a cargo of tea, if I can secure one.”“And how long do you expect to remain in Sydney?” inquired Sir Edgar.“Oh, about a fortnight, or three weeks at the utmost,” said I.“Upon my word, I should very much like to go with you,” remarked Sir Edgar, reflectively. “I confess I feel curious to see the end of your adventure; but if you are not likely to lie in port longer than the time you have named, I am afraid it can scarcely be managed. However, we shall see.”And with that the subject was dismissed for the moment, although it was afterwards frequently touched upon again before our arrival in Sydney.The other affair, to which I have referred as ultimately proving to be intimately associated with my fortunes and those of my friends the Desmonds, was one in which the ship’s steward became the most conspicuous figure.I had never liked the man, from the moment that I first came into contact with him upon the occasion of the crew signing articles. He had a sly, shifty expression of eye that aroused my instant antipathy; but he held such unexceptionable testimonials that I had no excuse for refusing to engage him, apart from the manifest injustice it would have been to deny him employment simply on account of a feeling of prejudice that, for aught I could tell, might disappear upon a further acquaintance. It did not, however; on the contrary, it rather increased, for he had not been with us long ere I discovered that he had a quiet, stealthy, cat-like way of moving about that would have been irreproachable had it not happened that frequently, when writing a letter, making up my accounts, or otherwise engaged upon work of a strictly private character, I was disconcerted to suddenly discover him behind my chair—without knowing how he came, or how long he had been there—in a position and attitude that irresistibly suggested the idea that he had been peering over my shoulder. Or again, when conversing more or less confidentially with others, it was no uncommon thing to make, by the merest accident, the annoying discovery that the man had been well within earshot all the while. And it did not in the least lessen my annoyance that, on all such occasions, the fellow seemed to be exactly where he ought to be, and engaged in the performance of perfectly legitimate duties.This, however, was the extent of his offence—if such it can be called—until we were within twenty-four hours of arriving in Sydney Harbour, when he was detected in an act that all but resulted in the destruction of the ship, while it seriously imperilled the lives of all hands.The ship’s lazarette, or storeroom, was situated—as is usually the case—underneath the cabin. But whereas it is the fashion in most ships to have a small hatch in the cabin floor by which access is gained to the lazarette, in theEsmeraldathere was a much more convenient arrangement, consisting of a step-ladder leading down through a hatchway beneath the saloon staircase, whereby stores could be brought up for use without the necessity of shifting the saloon table and dragging everything through the saloon itself. The hatchway giving access to the lazarette was enclosed by a partition which formed quite a roomy little apartment, wherein the steward was wont to unpack the barrels and cases containing the cabin stores; the work being thus done in such complete seclusion that it could not possibly prove a source of annoyance to any one, however fastidious. This arrangement also enabled the steward to enter the lazarette at his own sweet will and without any one being the wiser—which constituted my sole objection to it.We were, as I have said, within twenty-four hours’ sail of our port, the time being evening, about three bells in the first watch, when one of the nursemaids came rushing on deck with a scared face and the intelligence that there was a strong smell of burning in the saloon, which, moreover, was full of smoke. I of course sprang below at once, and found it to be indeed as the maid had stated; there was a most unmistakable smell of fire, and a haze of light-blue smoke in the cabin that seemed to have made its way there from the lazarette, for the companion-way and the space between the foot of the companion-ladder and the saloon bulkhead was thick with it. Guessing at once that the fire was in the lazarette, I threw open the door leading to the hatchway, and found the latter open, with a cloud of bluish-white smoke issuing from it, through which I dimly caught the flicker of flames. To drop through the hatchway was the work of an instant, when I at once saw what was the matter. A large packing-case that had evidently been nearly full of straw was all in a blaze, and beside it, with an idiotic, drunken grin upon his face, stood the steward, unsteadily pointing with wavering finger to the open lazarette lantern, which could just be descried in the midst of the blazing mass. In his other hand the fellow held a filled but unlighted pipe, which, with a tumbler that still contained a small quantity of wine, and a half-empty bottle of the same generous stimulant, explained at a glance the whole history of the incident. The rascal had evidently gone down into the lazarette and helped himself to a bottle of wine, upon the contents of which he had become so nearly intoxicated that at length, forgetful or reckless of the extreme danger of such a proceeding where he was, he had determined to further solace himself with a smoke, and, opening the lantern in order to light his pipe at the candle, had dropped it into the packing-case and set its contents on fire. The fellow was too stupidly drunk even to raise an alarm, and in another five minutes the whole lazarette would have been in a blaze. As it happened, however, I arrived upon the scene just in the nick of time to prevent this by seizing the blazing case and dragging it and its contents bodily up on deck—at the expense of a pair of severely scorched hands—and heaving it overboard. I then went below again, and took an exhaustive look round to assure myself beyond all question that no smouldering spark had been left behind; and, having completely satisfied myself upon that point, wound up the affair by ordering the steward to be put in irons and locked up in the deck-house forward. We arrived at Sydney next day, and within half an hour of mooring the ship I paid the man his wages and turned him adrift.The Desmond party got clear of the ship in time to dine ashore that evening; and, on the day but one following our arrival, they started upon their up-country journey, after bidding me a most cordial farewell, accompanied by the hope that they might find me still in port upon their return. I felt exceedingly sorry to part with them, and told them so; adding that I could not entertain the hope of seeing them again, on that side of the world at least, since they expected to be absent from Sydney for at least a month, by the end of which time I hoped to be some distance on my way to the treasure island. But I gave them a faithful promise to write to them on my return to England, acquainting them with the issue of my adventure, even should I find myself unable to accept the pressing invitation they gave me to visit them at their place in Devonshire.Sydney, as everybody knows, is a fairly busy port, and can always make a goodly display of shipping; at least, that is my experience of the place, and I had been there thrice prior to the period of this story; but, knowing—as I thought I did—something about the annual amount of tonnage using the harbour, I was astounded at the vast fleet of craft of all rigs and sizes that met my gaze when I beheld the noble city for the fourth time. The anchorage seemed literally packed with them; and it required some very delicate manoeuvring on the part of our pilot to take us to our berth without running foul of something. Fortunately for us—and possibly also for some of the other craft—there was a nice working breeze blowing at the time; and, theEsmeraldahappening moreover to be an exceptionally smart and handy vessel under canvas, we managed to thread our way in and out among the fleet without hurting ourselves or anybody else. The pilot observed the wondering glances I cast around me as we made our way up the harbour, and remarked, with a smile, and in a semi-confidential tone of voice—“Curious sight, isn’t it, sir?”“Very,” I agreed. “And the most curious part of it, to my mind, is thedesertedlook of the craft, everywhere. Most of them appear to be loaded and apparently ready for sea, yet in scarcely any of them is more than a single person to be seen; while many of them appear to have absolutely nobody at all on board.”“That’s just how it is with them, sir. There’s upwards of a hundred sail of vessels at anchor round about us at this present minute, without a soul aboard to look after ’em. Deserted by all hands, from the skipper to the cabin-boy, and left to take care of themselves while their crews are away making their fortunes—or trying to make them—at the new gold-fields. And those that aren’t absolutely deserted are left with only the cap’n aboard to look after ’em.Yourcrew’ll be leaving you before twenty-four hours are passed over their heads—unless they’re an unusually steady lot—mark my words if they don’t.”“And how long has this state of things existed?” I inquired.“Oh, ever since the discovery of the new gold-field; and that’s—let me see—why, about five months,” was the reply. “See that full-rigged ship over there—painted green, with white ports—that’s theSophie Ellesmere, of Liverpool. Her crew was the first to desert; and it was only last Thursday that I heard her cap’n saying that he had been ready for sea exactly five months on that day. He has written home to his owners to send him out a crew, and he’s expecting ’em by the next steamer; the arrangement being that they’re to go straight aboard from the steamer, and up anchor and away. But, bless you, sir, they’ll never do it; they’ll insist upon having a fling ashore, for a few days, after their trip out here; and so sure as they get leave to do that, they’ll be off, like all the rest.”“And are there no men to be obtained here in place of the deserters?” I asked.“Lord bless your soul, no, sir! Why, it’s a difficult matter to muster hands enough even to unload or load a ship, with labourer’s wages up to a pound a day; and the men who are willing to work even at that figure are either the few long-headed ones who prefer a moderate certainty to the chance of ill luck at the gold-fields, or such poor delicate chaps as can’t stand the hardships of camp life. But, as tosailors, bless you, sir, there ain’toneto be had for love or money. Even those who deserted from theSophie Ellesmerehaven’t been up there long enough yet to get tired of the life and to want a change.”“Then I suppose this new gold-field is proving pretty rich?” I hazarded.“Well, if you are to believe all that the newspapers say about it, there must be gold to be had for the trouble of picking it up, almost,” was the reply. “And it is certain that at least one man—a sailor he was, too—managed to scrape together ten thousand pounds’ worth of gold in the three months. He and three of his mates worked a claim together, and struck it downright rich when they got down to the gravel; one nugget alone that they brought up weighed fourteen hundred and ninety-seven ounces; and though that was the biggest of the lot, it was only one of many big ones. Of course, a ‘find’ like that goes the rounds of the newspapers, and is made much of and talked about to that degree that people simply go mad with the gold-fever, and rush off to the fields, absolutely certain that they, too, will be equally lucky.”This was serious news indeed; for, as I was then situated, I could ill afford to have the ship lying idle a single day, to say nothing of such a length of time as five or six months. Should I eventually succeed in recovering the treasure, of course even a year or more of enforced idleness would matter nothing; but it was still quite an open question with me whether I should ever see that treasure or not. I had not a shadow of doubt as to thebona fidesof the cryptogram. I felt certain that when that document was penned, the treasure was reposing peacefully in the hiding-place described therein; but how was I to know that it lay there still? The writer of the document may not have been the only person acquainted with the secret of the hiding-place; and, in such a case, the probabilities were in favour of the treasure having been unearthed years before either I or my father opened our eyes upon this world. Or it might even have been stumbled upon accidentally. In short, the prospect of its falling into my hands appeared so uncertain, even now that I had gained the clue to its place of concealment, that I felt it would be impossible for me to regard myself or to act otherwise than as a poor man until I should actually find the treasure in my possession. And then, too, I was naturally anxious and eager to settle the question as to whether the treasure still remained hidden or not. If it did, well and good; if not—if it was not to be found on the spot indicated in the cryptogram, it certainly would not be found at all; and all that would then remain for me to do would be to dismiss the matter from my mind, as I would a feverish dream, and devote myself, heart and soul, to my profession.The problem which now presented itself to my mind was, how to induce my crew to remain with me? Forinducementit would certainly have to be; I could scarcely have them locked up, or put them in irons during our stay in Sydney in order to insure myself against their desertion! I thought the matter over very carefully, both on that first evening of our arrival in Sydney Harbour, and during the subsequent day, after a visit to my consignees had assured me that the pilot’s story in nowise exaggerated the astounding state of things then prevailing in the port, and at length came to the conclusion that I could do nothing. If they chose to remain, well and good; if they elected to go, I had no power to prevent them.To my astonishment and gratification, however, they took their leave time after time, and always punctually turned up on board again when it had expired; until, when we had been in the harbour nearly a month, and our cargo was almost out, I began to hope that the fellows really meant to stay by me. Then, getting leave to spend Sunday ashore, as usual, every mother’s son of them—save the mate and Joe Martin—left me. I, of course, at once communicated with the police authorities, acquainting them with the fact of the desertion; and I also offered a substantial reward for the recovery of the men. But it was of no avail; the rascals had gone clean off; and there I found myself, in the same plight as many another shipmaster, locked up in Sydney Harbour for an indefinite period, with no hope whatever of getting away so long as the rush to the gold-fields lasted.
I was at this time no nearer to the unriddling of Richard Saint Leger’s cryptogram than I had been at the moment when I held it in my hand for the first time; but now that I was so far on my way toward the spot where the treasure was supposed to still lie hidden, I resolved that I would not return until I had succeeded in deciphering the document and testing the truth of whatever statement it might be found to contain. I had a shrewd suspicion that the hiding-place of the treasure would prove to be in one of the thousand islets of the vast Pacific; and I accordingly determined to confine my operations to those waters until I had some good reason for going elsewhere. Our hatches were consequently no sooner off than I set about inquiring for freights to one or another of the Pacific ports. I speedily discovered that the most advantageous freights offering were for Australia; and, it having leaked out that the littleEsmeraldawas something of a clipper, I succeeded, ere we had been in the river a week, in obtaining an excellent freight for Sydney, with the promise of quick despatch.
This matter arranged to my satisfaction, I had a little leisure on my hands; and the first use I made of it was to call upon the Desmonds at their hotel, in fulfilment of a promise extracted from me by them when they were leaving the ship. I found them just about to sit down to luncheon, at which meal they insisted that I should join them; and we had no sooner settled ourselves at the table than I was pelted with questions as to what I had been doing with myself since our parting; why had I not called before? had I decided upon my future movements? etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. I replied by enumerating a few of the infinitude of business matters that a shipmaster usually has to attend to immediately upon his arrival in port—especially if that port be a foreign one—and, in conclusion, told them that, having resolved to remain in Eastern waters until I should have either discovered the interpretation of my ancestor’s cryptogram, or should be driven to abandon all hope of ever solving the riddle, I had accepted a freight for Sydney, New South Wales; jestingly adding that they had better make up their minds to take passage with me.
As I said this I observed a quick interchange of glances between Sir Edgar, his wife, and Miss Merrivale; and then the former remarked—
“Well now, captain, it is very singular, but it is nevertheless a fact, that no longer ago than this morning at breakfast we practically made up our minds that, before returning home, we would go on to Australia, and see something of that wonderful country. An old friend and college chum of mine has settled there and gone in for sheep-farming upon a large scale, and, our conversation happening to turn upon him a few days ago, my wife made the curious discovery that he is the man who married the bosom friend and companion of her boarding-school days; the result being that a half jocular proposal of mine that we should extend our wanderings to Australia and beat up the quarters of these good folk has crystallised into the serious resolution to do so, provided that suitable passenger accommodation to take us there can be met with. This accident of your having accepted a freight for Sydney settles that part of the question, of course, for we will go with you—that is, if you are willing to have us again.”
I protested, heartily and truthfully, that no proposal could give me greater pleasure. Whereupon it was then and there arranged that the party should have the whole of the saloon accommodation as before; and ere I left them that afternoon, Sir Edgar—asking me to roughly calculate for him the probable date of our arrival—sat down and wrote to his friend, apprising him of the determination arrived at, and naming the approximate date at which the party might be looked for.
This arrangement was a most agreeable, as well as a most advantageous one for me; for it at once insured me the disposal of all my saloon accommodation for the passage, and, at the same time, the continued society of those who had already not only proved themselves to be most agreeable, companionable people, but whom I had by this time learned to regard as staunch personal friends.
Nothing worthy of mention occurred to mark our sojourn in the Canton river; I need, therefore, only state that, having duly discharged our inward cargo, and received our outward freight, we sailed for Sydney on the day three weeks following the date of the arrangement come to by Sir Edgar and his party to take passage in theEsmeralda.
The passage proved as uneventful as the previous one had been the reverse; only two incidents occurring during its progress of sufficient moment to demand especial mention. At the time of their occurrence I considered only one of them worth the distinction of an entry in my diary; but subsequent events proved that they were both destined to exercise almost equally important influences upon my fortunes and those of my friends the Desmond party.
The first—and what seemed to me infinitely the most important—of these was nothing less than my discovery of the long-sought key to Richard Saint Leger’s secret cipher; and it was brought about in a manner so singular and unexpected that I must leave the explanation of the matter to the psychological student, it being altogether beyond the comprehension of such a simple, matter-of-fact, unlearned seaman as myself.
It happened thus. I fully realised that it would be impossible for me to continue cruising to and fro in those Eastern waters for an indefinite period; I knew that a moment must sooner or later arrive when the force of circumstances would compel me to shape a course once more for England; and it already appeared to me highly probable that the arrival of that moment would prove to be coincident with that of the arrival of the ship in Sydney Harbour. I consequently became increasingly anxious to discover the interpretation of the cryptogram before the conclusion of the passage upon which we were then engaged. No sooner, therefore, were we fairly at sea than I devoted myself in grim and serious earnest to my quest for the key that was to unlock the secrets of the exasperating cipher. The document consisted, as the reader will remember, entirely of long, unbroken rows of figures—with the exception of a rather singular sketch in the midst of the text, which I took to be a representation of the island whereon the treasure was said to have been secreted, as viewed from certain bearings—and I knew that these figures must stand in lieu of a certain arrangement of the letters of the alphabet, forming words. I had early noted the somewhat curious fact that there was but one solitary nought throughout the document; but that only helped me so far as to render me morally certain that the letters of the text could scarcely be represented by units; and, taking this as my initial theory, I attempted every other combination of numbers that either my ingenuity or my fancy could suggest. In vain; I could hit upon no arrangement of numbers that, when transposed into letters, would give me a single intelligible word, either in English or any other language with which I had the slightest acquaintance. I at length grew so thoroughly worried over the matter that my nerves became sensibly affected; I turned irritable, and began to suffer from repeated attacks of extreme anxiety and depression; my appetite failed me, and I became a victim to the torment of insomnia.
In this condition of mind and body I one night retired to my cabin after a day of petty worries, in which everything and everybody seemed to have been at cross-purposes with me, and—utterly worn out with the prolonged tension upon my nerves—ultimately subsided into a fitful, restless, nightmare kind of slumber, during which I continued in my dreams the researches upon which my thoughts had now been for nearly three weeks concentrated. Over and over again did I seem to arrange upon paper an experimental system of numbering the alphabet, in the hope of obtaining some intelligible result; and at length, to my great astonishment and inexpressible delight, methought I found one. In feverish haste I—still in my dream—set to work upon the translation of the document, and was progressing swimmingly, when a sharp rapping upon my state-room door, and the steward’s voice announcing, “Six bells, sir,” (the time at which I was regularly called every morning), awoke me; and in that same instant I lost all recollection of every particular of my dream, remembering only that in it I really seemed to have at last found the solution of the hitherto inexplicable enigma.
Seriously annoyed at so inopportune an interruption to a dream that I quite regarded as a revelation, and vexed at my inability to recollect any more of the process of translation which I had followed than that it was an entirely novel one, I took my usual salt-water bath, dressed, and in due course sat down to breakfast, all the while striving desperately but unsuccessfully to recall the lost clue. My passengers observed my preoccupation, and endeavoured—for some time unavailingly—to withdraw me from it; at length, however, the consciousness dawned upon me that my peculiar behaviour must appear to them decidedly discourteous. I therefore aroused myself, threw off my abstraction, and apologised; explaining that I had been endeavouring to recall the details of a dream in which I seemed to have discovered the long-sought key to the secret of my hidden treasure.
“A dream!” exclaimed Miss Merrivale, delighted. “Oh, captain,praytell us all about it; it may help you to remember.”
I had no such hope, having already racked my brain until it seemed to reel, and all to no purpose; but it would have been childish to have refused the request. I therefore began by telling them how that I had retired on the preceding night with my mind full of the subject; how I had lain tossing restlessly, hour after hour, striving to think out some arrangement or system that I had not yet tried; and how eventually I had sunk into a feverish, nightmare slumber in which my brain continued its arduous, painful search for the key of the problem.
“At length,” continued I, “an idea came to me; and, taking a sheet of paper, I—I—Why, by all that is wonderful,I have it again!”
And, springing from my chair, to the no small consternation of my companions, who evidently thought I had suddenly gone demented, I rushed away to my state-room and, seizing a sheet of paper, jotted down the system that had just recurred to my memory. Then, heedless of my unfinished breakfast and everything else, I drew out the precious document itself, and, using the key that had come to me in such an extraordinary manner, soon discovered, to my inexpressible delight, that I really was at last upon the right track. I met with a few difficulties, it was true; but, braced-up and encouraged by what I had already achieved, I speedily surmounted them, and, after somewhat more than an hour’s patient labour, succeeded in evolving the following:—
“Latitude 3 degrees 40 minutes South; longitude 139 degrees 18 minutes West. Approached from the south-west the island, at a distance of fifteen leagues, bears the exact likeness of the face of a man floating on the water. Steer for the hollow between mouth and chin, and ye shall find a river, which boldly enter, and sail up it a distance of three furlongs to the creek on starboard hand; pass into the creek and land on the island. The treasure lies buried at a spot one thousand feet due south from the base of the obelisk rock.”
I was so elated at this discovery, the mental relief and exhilaration were so great that, in the exuberance of my delight, I felt constrained to acquaint my friends with my success; and rushing up on the poop with the cryptogram and its rough translation in my hand, I sat down by the open skylight, close to which Sir Edgar and Lady Emily were seated, and presenting the baronet with the documents, said—
“There, Sir Edgar, read that; and never hereafter dare to assert that there is nothing in dreams!”
“I do not remember that I have ever yet made the assertion,” he retorted laughingly. “But do you really mean to say that you have at length mastered the secret of the cipher?” as he took the paper from me, and forthwith read it aloud for the benefit of his wife and Miss Merrivale, the latter having joined us at her sister’s call.
“Well,” exclaimed Lady Emily, when her husband had finished, “it is really wonderful! quite the kind of thing that one reads of in books but does not believe, because one seldom or never meets with anything like it in real life. But so many strange things have happened during this eventful voyage of ours, that I shall never again be incredulous of anything.”
“Quite so, my dear,” agreed Sir Edgar. “Never commit yourself to the statement that you disbelieve anything. To refuse credence simply because one cannot understand, or because to our limited understanding the occurrence seems unlikely or impossible, is an infallible indication of ignorance. The wider our experience, and the deeper our knowledge, the more ready are we to admit that there may be many wonders that have never come within the limits of our ken, and about which we know nothing. But, about the key to the cryptogram, what is it? You must tell us that, you know, Saint Leger, in consideration of our own unsuccessful efforts to help you. Besides, the knowledge of such a difficult cipher as that is really worth having; who can say how soon, or under what circumstances, it might be found useful for purposes of secret communication?”
“Oh, it is ridiculously simple, when you know it,” said I. “All you have to do is to number each letter of the alphabet consecutively, beginning with A and calling it eleven. Then, with the cryptogram before you, you divide the figures into series of four, each four figures representing a letter. Subtract the first pair of figures from the second, and the remainder gives you the number of the letter as you have it in your key. For example: the first four figures in the document are 1133; that is to say, eleven and thirty-three. The difference between them is twenty-two, which, you see, represents the letter L in the key. Then take the next four figures, treating them in the same way, and so on throughout the document. One great advantage of such an arrangement appears to me to be that, however many times the same letter occurs in a document, it need never be represented twice in exactly the same way, which certainly must greatly tend to preserve the secrecy of the cipher. There are no spaces, you observe, to mark the divisions between the several words; but that offers no difficulty whatever when one possesses the key; while—to my cost I know it—it adds tremendously to the difficulty when one does not. Then, again, the figures of the latitude and longitude are given just as they would be in an ordinary document, which brought me completely to a standstill for a little while, until I happily guessed at the explanation; but after passing these stumbling-blocks, the rest was perfectly plain sailing.”
“Quite so,” acquiesced Sir Edgar. “It is simple enough when it has been explained; but a sufficiently ingenious thing for all that, in proof of which we have the fact that it has completely puzzled us all for months; and I really believe, Saint Leger, that, but for your wonderful dream, it would have continued to puzzle you to the end of time. I congratulate you heartily upon your good fortune.”
“And I;” “And I,” simultaneously exclaimed Lady Emily and her sister.
“And now,” continued the baronet, “what are your plans with regard to the matter? Will you still go on to Sydney, and discharge your cargo before attempting to secure your treasure, or will you make a détour, and prosecute your search for it forthwith?”
“Oh, of course I must fulfil my present obligations before I attempt to do anything toward recovering the treasure,” said I. “When I have done that—when I have safely landed you all on the wharf at Sydney, and have discharged my cargo, I shall well ballast the ship and clear for the Pacific in search of a cargo of sandal-wood. I shall of course make it my first business to secure the treasure; but, in order to keep up appearances, I shall also collect what sandal-wood I can find without very much trouble, and proceed with it to China, from whence I shall take home a cargo of tea, if I can secure one.”
“And how long do you expect to remain in Sydney?” inquired Sir Edgar.
“Oh, about a fortnight, or three weeks at the utmost,” said I.
“Upon my word, I should very much like to go with you,” remarked Sir Edgar, reflectively. “I confess I feel curious to see the end of your adventure; but if you are not likely to lie in port longer than the time you have named, I am afraid it can scarcely be managed. However, we shall see.”
And with that the subject was dismissed for the moment, although it was afterwards frequently touched upon again before our arrival in Sydney.
The other affair, to which I have referred as ultimately proving to be intimately associated with my fortunes and those of my friends the Desmonds, was one in which the ship’s steward became the most conspicuous figure.
I had never liked the man, from the moment that I first came into contact with him upon the occasion of the crew signing articles. He had a sly, shifty expression of eye that aroused my instant antipathy; but he held such unexceptionable testimonials that I had no excuse for refusing to engage him, apart from the manifest injustice it would have been to deny him employment simply on account of a feeling of prejudice that, for aught I could tell, might disappear upon a further acquaintance. It did not, however; on the contrary, it rather increased, for he had not been with us long ere I discovered that he had a quiet, stealthy, cat-like way of moving about that would have been irreproachable had it not happened that frequently, when writing a letter, making up my accounts, or otherwise engaged upon work of a strictly private character, I was disconcerted to suddenly discover him behind my chair—without knowing how he came, or how long he had been there—in a position and attitude that irresistibly suggested the idea that he had been peering over my shoulder. Or again, when conversing more or less confidentially with others, it was no uncommon thing to make, by the merest accident, the annoying discovery that the man had been well within earshot all the while. And it did not in the least lessen my annoyance that, on all such occasions, the fellow seemed to be exactly where he ought to be, and engaged in the performance of perfectly legitimate duties.
This, however, was the extent of his offence—if such it can be called—until we were within twenty-four hours of arriving in Sydney Harbour, when he was detected in an act that all but resulted in the destruction of the ship, while it seriously imperilled the lives of all hands.
The ship’s lazarette, or storeroom, was situated—as is usually the case—underneath the cabin. But whereas it is the fashion in most ships to have a small hatch in the cabin floor by which access is gained to the lazarette, in theEsmeraldathere was a much more convenient arrangement, consisting of a step-ladder leading down through a hatchway beneath the saloon staircase, whereby stores could be brought up for use without the necessity of shifting the saloon table and dragging everything through the saloon itself. The hatchway giving access to the lazarette was enclosed by a partition which formed quite a roomy little apartment, wherein the steward was wont to unpack the barrels and cases containing the cabin stores; the work being thus done in such complete seclusion that it could not possibly prove a source of annoyance to any one, however fastidious. This arrangement also enabled the steward to enter the lazarette at his own sweet will and without any one being the wiser—which constituted my sole objection to it.
We were, as I have said, within twenty-four hours’ sail of our port, the time being evening, about three bells in the first watch, when one of the nursemaids came rushing on deck with a scared face and the intelligence that there was a strong smell of burning in the saloon, which, moreover, was full of smoke. I of course sprang below at once, and found it to be indeed as the maid had stated; there was a most unmistakable smell of fire, and a haze of light-blue smoke in the cabin that seemed to have made its way there from the lazarette, for the companion-way and the space between the foot of the companion-ladder and the saloon bulkhead was thick with it. Guessing at once that the fire was in the lazarette, I threw open the door leading to the hatchway, and found the latter open, with a cloud of bluish-white smoke issuing from it, through which I dimly caught the flicker of flames. To drop through the hatchway was the work of an instant, when I at once saw what was the matter. A large packing-case that had evidently been nearly full of straw was all in a blaze, and beside it, with an idiotic, drunken grin upon his face, stood the steward, unsteadily pointing with wavering finger to the open lazarette lantern, which could just be descried in the midst of the blazing mass. In his other hand the fellow held a filled but unlighted pipe, which, with a tumbler that still contained a small quantity of wine, and a half-empty bottle of the same generous stimulant, explained at a glance the whole history of the incident. The rascal had evidently gone down into the lazarette and helped himself to a bottle of wine, upon the contents of which he had become so nearly intoxicated that at length, forgetful or reckless of the extreme danger of such a proceeding where he was, he had determined to further solace himself with a smoke, and, opening the lantern in order to light his pipe at the candle, had dropped it into the packing-case and set its contents on fire. The fellow was too stupidly drunk even to raise an alarm, and in another five minutes the whole lazarette would have been in a blaze. As it happened, however, I arrived upon the scene just in the nick of time to prevent this by seizing the blazing case and dragging it and its contents bodily up on deck—at the expense of a pair of severely scorched hands—and heaving it overboard. I then went below again, and took an exhaustive look round to assure myself beyond all question that no smouldering spark had been left behind; and, having completely satisfied myself upon that point, wound up the affair by ordering the steward to be put in irons and locked up in the deck-house forward. We arrived at Sydney next day, and within half an hour of mooring the ship I paid the man his wages and turned him adrift.
The Desmond party got clear of the ship in time to dine ashore that evening; and, on the day but one following our arrival, they started upon their up-country journey, after bidding me a most cordial farewell, accompanied by the hope that they might find me still in port upon their return. I felt exceedingly sorry to part with them, and told them so; adding that I could not entertain the hope of seeing them again, on that side of the world at least, since they expected to be absent from Sydney for at least a month, by the end of which time I hoped to be some distance on my way to the treasure island. But I gave them a faithful promise to write to them on my return to England, acquainting them with the issue of my adventure, even should I find myself unable to accept the pressing invitation they gave me to visit them at their place in Devonshire.
Sydney, as everybody knows, is a fairly busy port, and can always make a goodly display of shipping; at least, that is my experience of the place, and I had been there thrice prior to the period of this story; but, knowing—as I thought I did—something about the annual amount of tonnage using the harbour, I was astounded at the vast fleet of craft of all rigs and sizes that met my gaze when I beheld the noble city for the fourth time. The anchorage seemed literally packed with them; and it required some very delicate manoeuvring on the part of our pilot to take us to our berth without running foul of something. Fortunately for us—and possibly also for some of the other craft—there was a nice working breeze blowing at the time; and, theEsmeraldahappening moreover to be an exceptionally smart and handy vessel under canvas, we managed to thread our way in and out among the fleet without hurting ourselves or anybody else. The pilot observed the wondering glances I cast around me as we made our way up the harbour, and remarked, with a smile, and in a semi-confidential tone of voice—
“Curious sight, isn’t it, sir?”
“Very,” I agreed. “And the most curious part of it, to my mind, is thedesertedlook of the craft, everywhere. Most of them appear to be loaded and apparently ready for sea, yet in scarcely any of them is more than a single person to be seen; while many of them appear to have absolutely nobody at all on board.”
“That’s just how it is with them, sir. There’s upwards of a hundred sail of vessels at anchor round about us at this present minute, without a soul aboard to look after ’em. Deserted by all hands, from the skipper to the cabin-boy, and left to take care of themselves while their crews are away making their fortunes—or trying to make them—at the new gold-fields. And those that aren’t absolutely deserted are left with only the cap’n aboard to look after ’em.Yourcrew’ll be leaving you before twenty-four hours are passed over their heads—unless they’re an unusually steady lot—mark my words if they don’t.”
“And how long has this state of things existed?” I inquired.
“Oh, ever since the discovery of the new gold-field; and that’s—let me see—why, about five months,” was the reply. “See that full-rigged ship over there—painted green, with white ports—that’s theSophie Ellesmere, of Liverpool. Her crew was the first to desert; and it was only last Thursday that I heard her cap’n saying that he had been ready for sea exactly five months on that day. He has written home to his owners to send him out a crew, and he’s expecting ’em by the next steamer; the arrangement being that they’re to go straight aboard from the steamer, and up anchor and away. But, bless you, sir, they’ll never do it; they’ll insist upon having a fling ashore, for a few days, after their trip out here; and so sure as they get leave to do that, they’ll be off, like all the rest.”
“And are there no men to be obtained here in place of the deserters?” I asked.
“Lord bless your soul, no, sir! Why, it’s a difficult matter to muster hands enough even to unload or load a ship, with labourer’s wages up to a pound a day; and the men who are willing to work even at that figure are either the few long-headed ones who prefer a moderate certainty to the chance of ill luck at the gold-fields, or such poor delicate chaps as can’t stand the hardships of camp life. But, as tosailors, bless you, sir, there ain’toneto be had for love or money. Even those who deserted from theSophie Ellesmerehaven’t been up there long enough yet to get tired of the life and to want a change.”
“Then I suppose this new gold-field is proving pretty rich?” I hazarded.
“Well, if you are to believe all that the newspapers say about it, there must be gold to be had for the trouble of picking it up, almost,” was the reply. “And it is certain that at least one man—a sailor he was, too—managed to scrape together ten thousand pounds’ worth of gold in the three months. He and three of his mates worked a claim together, and struck it downright rich when they got down to the gravel; one nugget alone that they brought up weighed fourteen hundred and ninety-seven ounces; and though that was the biggest of the lot, it was only one of many big ones. Of course, a ‘find’ like that goes the rounds of the newspapers, and is made much of and talked about to that degree that people simply go mad with the gold-fever, and rush off to the fields, absolutely certain that they, too, will be equally lucky.”
This was serious news indeed; for, as I was then situated, I could ill afford to have the ship lying idle a single day, to say nothing of such a length of time as five or six months. Should I eventually succeed in recovering the treasure, of course even a year or more of enforced idleness would matter nothing; but it was still quite an open question with me whether I should ever see that treasure or not. I had not a shadow of doubt as to thebona fidesof the cryptogram. I felt certain that when that document was penned, the treasure was reposing peacefully in the hiding-place described therein; but how was I to know that it lay there still? The writer of the document may not have been the only person acquainted with the secret of the hiding-place; and, in such a case, the probabilities were in favour of the treasure having been unearthed years before either I or my father opened our eyes upon this world. Or it might even have been stumbled upon accidentally. In short, the prospect of its falling into my hands appeared so uncertain, even now that I had gained the clue to its place of concealment, that I felt it would be impossible for me to regard myself or to act otherwise than as a poor man until I should actually find the treasure in my possession. And then, too, I was naturally anxious and eager to settle the question as to whether the treasure still remained hidden or not. If it did, well and good; if not—if it was not to be found on the spot indicated in the cryptogram, it certainly would not be found at all; and all that would then remain for me to do would be to dismiss the matter from my mind, as I would a feverish dream, and devote myself, heart and soul, to my profession.
The problem which now presented itself to my mind was, how to induce my crew to remain with me? Forinducementit would certainly have to be; I could scarcely have them locked up, or put them in irons during our stay in Sydney in order to insure myself against their desertion! I thought the matter over very carefully, both on that first evening of our arrival in Sydney Harbour, and during the subsequent day, after a visit to my consignees had assured me that the pilot’s story in nowise exaggerated the astounding state of things then prevailing in the port, and at length came to the conclusion that I could do nothing. If they chose to remain, well and good; if they elected to go, I had no power to prevent them.
To my astonishment and gratification, however, they took their leave time after time, and always punctually turned up on board again when it had expired; until, when we had been in the harbour nearly a month, and our cargo was almost out, I began to hope that the fellows really meant to stay by me. Then, getting leave to spend Sunday ashore, as usual, every mother’s son of them—save the mate and Joe Martin—left me. I, of course, at once communicated with the police authorities, acquainting them with the fact of the desertion; and I also offered a substantial reward for the recovery of the men. But it was of no avail; the rascals had gone clean off; and there I found myself, in the same plight as many another shipmaster, locked up in Sydney Harbour for an indefinite period, with no hope whatever of getting away so long as the rush to the gold-fields lasted.
Chapter Thirteen.The New Crew.I had been in this unpleasant plight about three weeks, during which the remainder of the cargo had been discharged, the ship ballasted down to her very best sailing trim, and everything made ready for my trip to the Pacific, when one day, as I was wandering aimlessly about the streets, I encountered Sir Edgar and Lady Desmond, who—after a much longer sojourn up-country than they had intended—had returned to Sydney, and were beginning to think seriously of finding their way back to England. They were palpably and unfeignedly delighted to see me again, although they of course sympathised with me in my misfortune, and insisted upon my dining with them that evening, and afterwards accompanying them to the theatre. I suppose they saw that I needed a little cheering up; and I got it, too; for they were more than kind—their genial frankness of behaviour to me was more that of a brother and sister than of mere acquaintances, or even of the usual run of friends; and when I left them next morning after breakfast—for they insisted on my acceptance of their hospitality for the night—I felt more cheerful than I had done since the desertion of my crew. As I shook hands with Sir Edgar on the hotel steps, he said—“Now, Saint Leger, we are in no hurry to start for a month or two, you know; and we are all quite as eager as ever we were to see the end of this adventure of yours; so if you should succeed in scraping together a crew within, say, the next two months, you may reckon upon us as passengers again—that is, if you would care to have us.”“You are more than kind, Sir Edgar,” said I, “and I should be delighted to have you; but you appear to have forgotten that my plans include another visit to China before I point the barque’s nose for home, even should I succeed in securing the treasure.”“That does not matter a bit, my dear fellow,” he laughed. “As I have already told you, we are in no hurry whatever; and, to tell you the truth, Lady Emily seems to enjoy so much better health when at sea than she does when on shore, that I should welcome any excuse plausible enough to keep her on shipboard for two or three months longer. So, if you should succeed in picking up a crew, let me know at once.”It really seemed as though the reappearance of the Desmonds upon the scene had brought good fortune to me; for when I reached the ship and went on board, Forbes met me at the gangway with quite an unwonted expression of delight upon his face, and said—“I am glad you have come on board so early, sir; for I have actually had a gang of eleven men alongside, who say they are looking for berths.”“Eleven men!looking for berths!” I ejaculated, scarcely crediting my ears. “Where are they?”“They went off up-town again, unfortunately, when I told them you were not on board,” replied Forbes. “But I have the address of the boarding-house at which they are staying, and I told them I would let them know when you could see them.”“My dear fellow,” I exclaimed, “be off at once, and say that I shall be on board for the remainder of the day, and can see them at any time. Or, stay—perhaps I had better look in upon them myself; I can manage to drop in upon them in a casual sort of way, that will have less appearance of eagerness and anxiety than would sending especially for them. What did they look like?”“Well,” admitted Forbes, “theylookedas rowdy a set of ruffians as I ever wish to set eyes on; but their manners and mode of speaking were those of fairly decent, respectable men. They said that they had been at the gold-fields for the last seven months, and had scarcely made enough to keep themselves; they were consequently tired of their shore life, and had determined to go to sea again if they could meet with a ship and officers to their liking. They were mightily taken with the barque—as of course any man who knew a ship from a washing-tub would be—swore she was the sweetest-looking craft in the harbour; and, when I mentioned your name, said they had heard of you and wouldn’t wish to go to sea under a better man. Altogether, if they are only in earnest as to their desire to go to sea again, I do not think you should find much difficulty in securing them, sir.”“Give me their address,” said I, “and I will be off after them at once. This is not a time for fencing and feigning indifference; the fellows know, as well as you or I do, what a haul they will prove to the man who is lucky enough to secure them, so I will not run any risk of losing them by pretending otherwise. If I can persuade them to ship, I will sail to-morrow, short-handed though we should be. I can take the starboard watch myself; and, for the rest, we shall just have to keep an extra sharp eye upon the barometer and the weather, and be careful to snug down if need be in good time, until we again reach China, when we shall probably be able to get another man or two.” So saying, I took the address from Forbes, and forthwith started in search of the men. I found them at length, after a somewhat tedious quest, in a most disreputable-looking boarding-house, situate in the most disreputable part of the town. And I am bound to admit that my first impression of the men was that their appearance was in perfect accord with their surroundings. They most undoubtedly were, as Forbes had said, as rowdy-looking a set of ruffians as one would care to meet. Tough, sinewy desperadoes, swarthy as mulattoes by long exposure to the fierce southern sun, with long, dense, tangled thatches of hair mingling with a thick, neglected growth of beard and whisker that permitted scarcely a feature, save the nose and eyes, to be seen, clad in the remains of the inevitable flannel shirt, cord trousers, and knee-boots, with belts about their waists, in which each man carried his revolver and a formidable bowie-knife; the whole topped off with a soft, broad-brimmed, battered felt hat dashed on to the head in a fashion eloquently suggestive of the utmost extreme of recklessness,—I think I never saw a party of men who, under ordinary circumstances, I would have been less willing to ship as a crew than these. Yet, when I spoke to them, they answered me respectfully, and there was scarcely more than the merest tinge of that defiant independence of manner that their appearance had prepared me to expect. They told me, as they had told Forbes, that they had been working for something like seven months at the gold-fields, and had met with so little success that they were now almost penniless, a result which they attributed to their lack of experience as miners. One of the party remarked grimly that the life of a miner was even worse than that of a sailor; inasmuch as that, with an equal amount of exposure and harder work, it was no unusual thing for them to be reduced to starvation rations. Seven months’ experience of this kind, they said, had satisfied them that they were never intended for gold-miners; and they had accordingly left the fields in a body, and tramped to Sydney, determined to revert to their original occupation of seamen, and agreeing to ship together for home in the first craft that took their fancy.“But,” said I, “I am not going directly to England. I am bound to the Pacific for a cargo of sandal-wood, and thence to China, before seeking a freight to England.”“Oh, well,” said the fellow who had constituted himself the spokesman of the party, “that won’t make any great difference. The voyage ’ll be so much the longer, and we shall have the more money to take up at the end of it. The chief thing with us is to find a comfortable ship and a good skipper, and we’re of opinion that if we ship with you, we shall have both. Ain’t that so, mates?”“Ay, ay, judge; that’s so, my bully. Them’s our sentiments. Right you are, as usual.”In these and similar terse sentences, the men confirmed the remarks of their companion.The question of wages was then raised, in respect of which I found their demands far more moderate than I had dared to hope; namely, five pounds ten per month for the seamen and the man who undertook to perform the duties of steward, and six pounds ten per month for the cook; each man to receive an Advance oftwomonths’ wages upon signing articles. To this I agreed without demur, and then, anxious to strike while the iron appeared to be hot, I suggested that they should sign articles forthwith. A short consultation among themselves followed this proposal, at the end of which they declared themselves quite willing, but stipulated that they should have twenty-four hours clear after signing, in which to provide themselves with an outfit for the voyage. To this I also assented, and we then separated, they to make their way to the shipping-office, and I to hurry down to the barque for the necessary papers and cash prior to joining them there.It was just noon when, the work of signing the articles and paying the advances having been completed, I jumped into a cab to drive to the hotel at which the Desmonds were staying, to acquaint those good people with my latest stroke of luck. They were out, however, as I felt morally certain they would be; so I left a note for Sir Edgar, and then set about the transaction of such small items of business as were necessary prior to going to sea. This, however, amounted to very little, as I had practically completed all my preparations long before; so by five o’ clock in the evening I had cleared everything off my hands, and was once more alongside the ship. Here I found a note from Sir Edgar Desmond awaiting me, in which he acknowledged the receipt of my own epistle, and enjoined me to dine with them without fail that evening. This I did; and the upshot of it all was that they decided to complete the trip with me, despite the poor account I felt constrained to give them of my crew, and announced their intention of joining the ship immediately after lunch on the following day.As I stretched myself out in my bunk that night, and reflected with a sigh of satisfaction that, if all went well, we should be once more at sea in less than twenty-four hours, the disagreeable suspicion for the first time obtruded itself upon my mind that possibly it might prove after all that I had been the victim of a clever swindle, and that I should never see anything more of any of the men to whom I had handed over two months’ advance so confidingly. However, about eleven o’clock the next morning, the first of them—William Rogers, the man whom I had shipped as boatswain—put in an appearance alongside, neatly dressed in a new suit of blue cloth, with cap, shirt, and shoes to match; also a brand-new chest and bundle of bedding; and coming on board, quietly went below and proceeded to arrange his belongings for the voyage. I was agreeably surprised at this man’s appearance; for whereas when I had shipped him on the previous day, he was ragged, dirty, and unkempt, he was now well-dressed, clean, and palpably fresh from the hands of the barber. Close upon his heels came Jacob Simpson, the cook, who had likewise undergone a renovating process that materially improved his appearance, although as I looked at the man there was a something about him that I did not quite like. For one thing, he seemed to remind me vaguely of somebody else—though who, I could not for the life of me say—who had left an unpleasant impression upon my mind; and, added to this, he was afflicted with an affection of the voice—the result of bush-fever, he informed me—which permitted him to speak only in a hoarse whisper. Next came Peter Gale, the man who had undertaken to perform the functions of steward, though he frankly admitted that he knew little or nothing about the duties of the post. But, since a steward we must have, and this man impressed me as being the most quiet and likely man for the berth, I had chosen him, since he had professed his readiness to try his hand and do his best. From this man I learned the pleasing intelligence that the remainder of the men were following him, and would be on board in about a quarter of an hour; so I introduced him to the lazarette, and directed him to obtain the cook’s assistance to break out a fresh barrel of beef, and get a dinner under way for the crew forthwith. About the time named by the steward, the main body made their appearance and came quietly on board. There were eight of them, namely, Hiram Barr and James Mckinley, Americans; Michael O’Connor, an Irishman; François Bourdonnais, a Frenchman; Carl Strauss, a German; Christian Christianssen, a Swede; Pedro Villar, a Portuguese; and James Nicholson (nicknamed “San Domingo,” from the island in which he was born), a full-blooded negro. They constituted a distinctly scratch crew, I was compelled to admit, as I watched them coming on board; but they all understood and spoke English; and although, with all their sprucing up, a few of them still wore a somewhat sinister appearance, every man of them was, for a wonder, perfectly sober, and they all bore themselves in a remarkably decent and orderly manner. Moreover, the eight last enumerated had all shipped as able seamen. In short, while perhaps they were not a crew that I would have selected from choice, I considered myself marvellously lucky in getting even them, and was more than content.As soon as they were all aboard and had gone below, I sent word for’ard by the steward that they were to employ the interval until dinner-time in “shaking down,” and that after dinner we should proceed to rig out the jib-boom and unmoor the ship preparatory to going to sea. Then, leaving Forbes in charge, I went ashore and cleared the ship for the Pacific, paid the harbour and other dues, wrote and posted a few letters, and took lunch. Then down on board again, overtaking the Desmond party on the way; when, having shipped them and their somewhat multitudinous belongings, the windlass was manned, the cable hove short, the topsails sheeted home and mast-headed, the anchor tripped, and we were off, reaching the open sea just in time to see the sun disappear behind the land as we squared away upon a north-easterly course for Dick Saint Leger’s treasure island.For a time all went merry as a marriage bell; the weather was simply perfect, with blue skies, brilliant sunshine, and gentle breezes, with charming glimpses of lovely tropical islands, day after day, when we reached the Fiji and Friendly Archipelagos and threaded our way through them. To add to the enjoyment of this time, the men were doing their duty in a manner that ought to have satisfied the most exacting of officers, and behaving with a quietness and steadiness of demeanour that was absolutely unexceptionable. They seemed always willing, and alwayscontent—a phenomenon that I had never hitherto met with on shipboard for longer than the first week after leaving a port.I was consequently very much astonished when, one dark night, in the middle watch, when we had been at sea rather over a fortnight, Joe Martin, who was at the wheel, took advantage of a momentary pause I made beside him, to address me in the following terms:—“Beg pardon, cap’n, but could you make it convenient to pitch into me, and give me a most tremenjious blowin’ up, and call me a lot of hard names afore all hands, to-morrow, some time in the second dog-watch, if I was to give you an excuse for so doin’?”“Blow you up? abuse you? before all hands?” I ejaculated, as soon as my astonishment would allow me to speak. “Why, what in the name of all that is extraordinary do you mean, Martin?”“Just exactly what I says, sir,” was the reply. “The fact is, there’s something brewin’ in the fo’c’s’le, and I want to get to the bottom of it. But I can’t, because the men have got the notion into their heads that I’m a bit of a favourite of yours, and they won’t trust me. So I want you to pitch into me, hot and heavy, before all hands, to-morrow; and then I’ll turn sulky, and start a good growl, and perhaps then they’ll say something to me.”“But I don’t understand you, Joe,” I protested. “The men are the most quiet, willing, contented, well-behaved set of fellows it has ever been my pleasure to sail with; and do you mean to tell me that they are plotting mischief among themselves?”“Well, sir, they’re plottin’something, that’s certain; and if it ain’t mischief, why do they keep me out of it?” argued Joe.“How do you know—or rather, what makes you suppose they are plotting?” I asked.“Why, they’re everlastin’ly whispering together,” was the reply. “If you’ll only take notice, sir, you’ll see that there’s never a minute, day nor night, but what two or three of ’em has got their heads together, palaverin’. And if ever I goes near and makes a show of chimin’ in, the talk’s stopped at once and changed to something else. And away along in the first dog-watch, for an hour or so, the steward ’ll come for’ard, and then they’ll all be as thick as thieves together, instead of turnin’ in and gettin’ their sleep, as honest men should. If it’s our eight hours out, our chaps slinks off down into the fo’c’s’le out o’ my way; and if it’s our eight hoursin, the whole watch except me ’ll be on deck until pretty nigh on to four bells. Pretends, they do, that the fo’c’s’le’s so hot they can’t sleep.Idon’t find it too hot to sleep.”“And how do they behave to you?” I asked.“Oh, as to that,” conceded Joe, “I haven’t got no fault to find. They’re all civil and friendly enough, exceptin’ cookie;hewon’t have a word to say to me, or come anigh me if he can help it; and, whatever it is, it’s my belief that he’s at the bottom of it. But the rest of ’em are all right, only they won’t have me in with ’em durin’ their confabs.”“Pshaw! my good fellow,” I exclaimed, “you have found a mare’s nest. Their ‘confabs,’ as you call them, relate to nothing worse than their past experiences at the mines, I’ll be bound. And the reason why they will not speak about them to you is, most probably, because they think you would not be interested in them.”“Well, sir, maybe you’re right,” remarked Joe, “but I don’t believe you are, all the same, if you’ll excuse my sayin’ so. There’s too much secrecy for everything to be quite right. And, if you don’t mind, I should like to try that little experiment I spoke about just now; if there’s nothing wrong it won’t matter, and if there is, perhaps they’ll be inclined to have me in with ’em, if they think I’ve fallen out of your favour.”“Very well, Joe,” said I; “have your own way, if you like. I’ll not spare you if you do anything to vex me; only remember, my good fellow, that whatever I may say will only be said to humour you.”“That’s all right, sir; and thank ye kindly. There’s just one thing more I’d like to say, sir, and then we’d better stop talkin’. It’s just this. Don’t you try to have any talk with me on the quiet like. You leave everything to me, sir, and as soon as I’ve found out anything I’ll make a chance to let you know, somehow.”And so this remarkable conversation ended. Could there possibly be anything in Joe’s idea? The men seemed to be perfectly comfortable and contented; they appeared to desire nothing in the way of food or accommodation, beyond what they already possessed; they had not grumbled or made any complaint; what could they be plotting to obtain? I asked myself this question over and over again, and could find no answer to it; notwithstanding which, Joe’s communication made me feel exceedingly uneasy and anxious; so much so that, when I turned in, I found it quite impossible to get to sleep.It may be readily imagined that when next I had an opportunity to observe the men I watched them, individually and collectively, most closely; yet, beyond the trivial circumstance that conversation always ceased if I happened to approach, I could detect nothing in the men’s demeanour to lend the slightest colour to Joe’s supposition. True, two or three of them—the Frenchman, the Portuguese, and the German, for instance—now impressed me as being scarcely so civil in their behaviour as they had been when they first joined the ship; but that, after all, might be only my fancy; and, if it were not, one hardly looks for such good behaviour from foreigners as one is wont to receive from Englishmen.As for Joe Martin, he began his operations bright and early on the morning following his conversation with me. He was now the ship’s carpenter, and in that capacity he had received orders on the previous day to fit a new set of stern-sheets in the port quarter-boat. This job he began the first thing in the morning, swinging her inboard and lowering her to the deck for his greater convenience during the progress of the work. This simple matter he managed so clumsily that he contrived to bilge the boat, necessitating the renewal of three timbers and a plank. I was on deck at the time of the accident, and, forgetting for the moment his scheme to provoke a seeming quarrel with me, I cautioned him about the awkward, lubberly way in which he was proceeding, and recommended him to get more help. He replied, in an offhand, careless way, that he was quite man enough todo sucha job as that without anybody’s help; and, as he spoke, down came the boat with a crash, and the damage was done. The whole thing seemed such a piece of pig-headed stupidity that I was thoroughly exasperated with the fellow, and gave him a good sound rating; much, apparently, to the amusement of the other men. Joe said nothing by way of excuse—indeed, any attempt to excuse himself would have been so wholly out of place as only to have increased his offence—but he slouched away forward, muttering to himself, and I noticed him stop and say a word or two to a couple of men who were at work upon the forecastle.ThenI remembered his proposal, and bethought me that this might be his way of carrying out his plan; if so, I could not help admiring his ingenuity, albeit still decidedly annoyed with him for the powerful realism with which he was playing his little comedy.The boat lay as she had fallen for fully an hour; meanwhile Joe had vanished. This cool behaviour on his part nettled me still more; and at length I directed the boatswain to pass the word for Joe to come aft. Upon which Joe made his appearance, obviously from the forecastle, wearing that sulky, sullen look that always exasperated me more thoroughly than anything else, whenever I met with it in a man (I am afraid I am rather a short-tempered individual at times); and I gave him such a wigging as four hours earlier I would not have believed possible; ordering him not to waste any more time, but to set to work at once to repair the damage occasioned by his clumsiness. Whether or no Joe began to guess from my manner that he had gone a trifle too far, I know not; but he at once went to work as I had ordered him, and worked, moreover, with such a will that by eight bells in the afternoon watch the damage was repaired and the boat as good as ever she was, save for a lick of paint over the new work. This want Joe now proceeded, with a great show of zeal, to supply, procuring a pot of paint and a brush, with which he came bustling aft. Now, if there is one thing upon which I pride myself more than another, it is the scrupulous cleanliness of my decks; conceive, therefore, if you can, the extremity of my disgust and annoyance when I saw Joe catch the naked toes of his right foot in the corner of a hen-coop, and, in his agony, drop the pot of paint upon my beautifully clean poop, of course spilling the whole contents. It is true that, forgetting his pain the next moment, he dropped upon his knees and contrived, by scooping up the spilled paint in the palms of his hands, to replace a considerable proportion of it in the pot; but after he had done his best with canvas and turpentine a horrible unsightly blotch still remained to mar the hitherto immaculate purity of the planks, and it is therefore not to be wondered at if I again administered a sound and hearty rating to the culprit, this time in the presence and hearing of all hands. It was all the more vexatious to me that, instead of expressing any contrition for his carelessness, Joe persistently maintained the surly demeanour he had exhibited more or less throughout the day.My anger, however, was short-lived, and by the time that I had had an hour or two for reflection I could not help feeling that I had been decidedly harsh and severe with the fellow for what was practically his first offence; moreover, he had always hitherto behaved so exceedingly well, and had proved himself such a splendid workman, that he had become a great favourite with me. When, therefore, during dinner, Sir Edgar made some half-jesting remark about Joe’s misdeeds, I was far more disposed to make excuses for the man than to maintain a semblance of that annoyance I had so conspicuously exhibited during the day: nevertheless, I deemed it politic to do the latter, particularly while the steward was about; as I felt that, if the rest of the men were indeed traitors, the steward was probably the same, and would, in any case, be pretty certain to repeat in the forecastle whatever might be said in the cabin as to Joe’s misdemeanours.It was Joe’s trick at the wheel that night for the first half of the first watch; but, as the passengers were about the deck during the whole time, I made no attempt to enter into confidential communication with him, and I had no other opportunity that night. On the following day his misdeeds were not quite so egregious, but he still contrived to behave like a man who considered himself aggrieved; and when his trick at the wheel came round again, during the first half of the afternoon watch, he steered so carelessly, and ran the ship off her course so abominably, that I had at last to send him away from the wheel, and summon another man in his place; taking the fullest advantage, at the same time, of the opportunity thus afforded to give him another good rating, hot and heavy, as I felt that he intended I should.His turn to “grind water” came round again at the latter half of the middle watch, and when he came aft at four bells to relieve the wheel I took care to be at hand with a reminder of his shortcomings during the previous afternoon, and the stern expression of a hope that he would give me no further cause to complain of him. And, not content with that, I took up a position near him with an air that was intended to convey to the retiring helmsman my determination to keep a strict eye upon Master Joe’s conduct during the remainder of the watch.Joe waited a minute or two, to allow the other man to get fairly out of hearing forward, and then remarked—“I’m afraid, sir, I rather overdone the thing yesterday, a-stavin’ in the gig, and then capsizin’ the paint. If I did, I hope you’ll forgive me, sir, and remember as I done it for the best.”“Overdid it? Did it for the best?” I ejaculated. “Why, confound you, man, do you mean to tell me that you did those thingsintentionally?”“Of course I did, sir,” answered Joe, in much lower tones than my own, obviously with the intention of putting me on my guard. “You see, sir, them chaps for’ard are pretty cute; they’re too old birds to be caught with chaff; and I knew that if I was to get on the blind side of ’em, it’d have to be by means of throwin’ you into a genuine, downright passion with me. Besides, if you’ll excuse me for sayin’ of it, Captain Saint Leger, you ain’t much of a hactor, sir; you’re altogether too fair, and straightfor’ard, and aboveboard to be able to deceive, or fight on equal terms with a lot of sharp, sly, underhand, sneakin’ beggars like them in the fo’c’s’le. So says I to myself, ‘Joe,’ says I, ‘ifyouwants that crowd to believe as you’re out of the skipper’s favour, and are ready to join ’em in any mischief they may be hatchin’, you’ve got to do somethin’ to make the cap’n real downright savage with yer.’ And that’s why I done it, sir. I’m boun’ to allow that the capsizin’ of that there paint was perhaps a-comin’ of it aleetletoo strong; but—”“Oh, that’s all right, Joe,” I interrupted. “There is no doubt about the fact that you succeeded in making me genuinely angry with you; the important question now is, has it had the effect that you anticipated? Have the other men shown any disposition to take you into their confidence and make you a participator in the plot or whatever it is that you suppose them to be hatching?”“Well, no, sir, not exactly,” Joe admitted. “But I’m in hopes that they will afore long, if this here unpleasantness between me and you goes on. At present, you see, they don’t know but what it may be a temp’ry thing as’ll soon blow over; but if they finds that you’ve got a sort of spite again’ me, and are always down upon me and drivin’ me to desperation, as you may say, they’ll be pretty certain to have a try to get me over on their side. You see, sir, I’m about as strong as e’er a man aboard here, and if them chaps are up to mischief they’ll nat’rally prefer to have me with ’em instead of again’ ’em.”“Undoubtedly they will,” I agreed. “But, Joe, you have not yet told me exactly what it is that you suspect. If they were dissatisfied with their food, or their treatment, or their accommodation, would they not come aft and make a complaint, and endeavour to get the matter rectified in that way? But they never have done so; and indeed I cannot imagine what they have to be dissatisfied with: their food is all of the very best description it was possible to obtain; the forecastle is as roomy and comfortable a place as you will meet with in any ship of this size; and, as to work, I do not think they have much to complain of on that score.”“No, sir, no; it ain’t nothing of that sort,” asserted Joe. “It’s my belief, sir, as they’ve somehow got wind ofthe treasure, and that it’s that they’re after.”“The treasure?” I exclaimed in blank astonishment. “What treasure?”“Why, the treasure as you expects to find on this here island as we’re bound for. Lor’ bless you, sir,” continued Joe, noting the consternation that his unexpected communication had occasioned me, “we all knowed about it in the fo’c’s’le—the old hands, I mean—afore the ship arrived in Sydney Harbour. It was the steward as brought the news for’ard to us one night. He was a curious chap, he was, as inquisitive as a monkey; he always wanted to know the ins and outs of everything that was goin’ on, and he’d noticed you porin’ and puzzlin’ over a paper with a lot of figures wrote on it, and a drorin’ in the middle; and he used to come for’ard and tell us that you’d been havin’ another try to find out what them figures meant. And one night—it was when we was gettin’ well on toward Sydney—he comes for’ard in great excitement, and he says, says he, ‘I’m blowed if the skipper haven’t been and found out at last the meanin’ of that paper that he’s been puzzlin’ over durin’ the whole of this blessed voyage; and what do you suppose it is?’ says he.“Well, in course we said we didn’t know; and some of us said we didn’t care either, seein’ that it wasn’t any business of ours.“‘Oh, ain’t it?’ says he. ‘P’r’aps you won’t say it ain’t no business of yours when you know what it is,’ he says.“‘Well,’ says one of the men—it were Bill Longman—‘if you thinks as it concerns us, why don’t you up and tell us what it is, instead of hangin’ in the wind like a ship in irons?’ says he.“So then the steward he tells us as how, that mornin’ whilst you was all at breakfast in the saloon, he’d heard you tellin’ about a dream you’d had the night before; and how you started up in the middle of the meal and rushed off to your state-room, and stayed there a goodish while, and then went up on deck and told Sir Edgar as you’d discovered the meanin’ of the paper, which was all about how to find a treasure that was buried on a desert island somewhere; and that you intended to go on to Sydney and discharge your cargo, and then take in ballast and sail for the Pacific to find this here island and get the treasure.“Of course when he’d finished tellin’ us about it there was a great palaver about buried treasure, and pretty nigh every man in the fo’c’s’le pretended to have heard of a similar case; and we all agreed as you was a lucky man, and we hoped as how you’d find the island, and the treasure too. And by-and-by, after there had been a good deal of talk of that sort, Bill Longman up and says, ‘But, George,’ he says to the steward, ‘you haven’t told us yet how this here affair concarns us?’“‘Oh, well,’ says George, with a curious kind of a laugh, ‘if you don’tseeas how it concarns us, why of course there ain’t no more to be said.’ And that was all we could get out of the steward that night.“But a night or two afterwards, Master George brings up the subject again by sayin’ that he don’t suppose it’s likely as you’ll offer to share this here treasure with all hands, supposin’ that you find it. And then he goes on to say that, for his part, he don’t see as the treasure is yours any more than it’s anybody else’s, and that, in his opinion, if it’s ever found, all hands ought to share and share alike. And some of the chaps seemed to think he was right, and others they didn’t, and Bill up and says—“‘Look here, George,’ he says, ‘supposin’ when we gets ashore at Sydney you was to find a bag of sovereigns in the street, would you share ’em with us?’“George said that ’d be a different thing altogether from findin’ a treasure on a desert island; and we all had a long argyment about it, and couldn’t agree; and, after that, the steward talked a good deal more about all sharin’ alike in the treasure, and that if we was all of one mind it could be done, and a lot more stuff of the same kind. But we all laughed at him; and then came the arrival of the ship in Sydney, and George bein’ paid off, and after that I heard nothin’ more about the treasure.”“And what makes you imagine that the new men have got hold of the story?” I asked.“Well, sir,” said Joe, “it’s just one or two little things I’ve overheard said. The first thing as ever made me suspect that there was somethin’ up was the mention of the word ‘treasure.’ Cookie is the man as seems to know most about it—he’s everlastin’ly talkin’ about it—and I fancy he must have fallen in with the steward somewheres ashore and heard the whole story from him.”“And what has the cook to say about it?” I inquired.“Ah, that’s just what I wants to find out,” answered Joe. “They won’t say anything to me about it, but just sits whisperin’ with their heads together away for’ard in the far end of the fo’c’s’le, and I notices as it’s always the cook as has most to say. He and Rogers seems to be the leadin’ spirits in the job, whatever it is.”“So your little scheme of yesterday has borne no fruit, thus far?” I suggested.“Well, not much,” said Joe. “But then, I don’t expect ’em to take me into their secrets right off the reel, the first time that I misbehave myself. But I believe they’ll have a try to get me in with ’em before they tries to carry out their plans. Last night, when I was sittin’ on my chest, grumblin’ and growlin’ at the way I’d been treated durin’ the day,”—here Joe laughed softly as the peculiar humour of the situation seemed to present itself to him—“the cook wanted to know whether I wouldn’t rather be a rich man than have to go to sea for the rest of my days; but Rogers stopped him with a look, and said, ‘Now, doctor, you leave Joe alone, and don’t go puttin’ no nonsensical notions into his head. You leave him to me; perhaps I may have somethin’ to say to him myself by-and-by, and I don’t want nobody to interfere at all in this here matter.’ And that’s how the thing stands at present.”“Very well,” said I. “You have told me enough to satisfy me that your conjectures are by no means as groundless as I supposed them to be, and you must do your best, Joe, to find out what you can. But you will have to beverycareful what you are about: it is clear enough that, if they meditate treachery of any kind, they are not yet at all disposed to trust you; and if they at all contemplate the possibility of winning you over to join them, they will set all manner of traps for you, and test you in every conceivable way before making up their minds to trust you.”“Yes,” assented Joe, “I expects they will. But I’m all ready for ’em, whenever they likes; I’ve got my course all marked out, clear and straight; and, if Rogers or any of the others comes soundin’ me, they’ll be surprised to find what a downright bad character I am, and how ready I am to take a hand in any mischief that’s brewin’.”
I had been in this unpleasant plight about three weeks, during which the remainder of the cargo had been discharged, the ship ballasted down to her very best sailing trim, and everything made ready for my trip to the Pacific, when one day, as I was wandering aimlessly about the streets, I encountered Sir Edgar and Lady Desmond, who—after a much longer sojourn up-country than they had intended—had returned to Sydney, and were beginning to think seriously of finding their way back to England. They were palpably and unfeignedly delighted to see me again, although they of course sympathised with me in my misfortune, and insisted upon my dining with them that evening, and afterwards accompanying them to the theatre. I suppose they saw that I needed a little cheering up; and I got it, too; for they were more than kind—their genial frankness of behaviour to me was more that of a brother and sister than of mere acquaintances, or even of the usual run of friends; and when I left them next morning after breakfast—for they insisted on my acceptance of their hospitality for the night—I felt more cheerful than I had done since the desertion of my crew. As I shook hands with Sir Edgar on the hotel steps, he said—
“Now, Saint Leger, we are in no hurry to start for a month or two, you know; and we are all quite as eager as ever we were to see the end of this adventure of yours; so if you should succeed in scraping together a crew within, say, the next two months, you may reckon upon us as passengers again—that is, if you would care to have us.”
“You are more than kind, Sir Edgar,” said I, “and I should be delighted to have you; but you appear to have forgotten that my plans include another visit to China before I point the barque’s nose for home, even should I succeed in securing the treasure.”
“That does not matter a bit, my dear fellow,” he laughed. “As I have already told you, we are in no hurry whatever; and, to tell you the truth, Lady Emily seems to enjoy so much better health when at sea than she does when on shore, that I should welcome any excuse plausible enough to keep her on shipboard for two or three months longer. So, if you should succeed in picking up a crew, let me know at once.”
It really seemed as though the reappearance of the Desmonds upon the scene had brought good fortune to me; for when I reached the ship and went on board, Forbes met me at the gangway with quite an unwonted expression of delight upon his face, and said—
“I am glad you have come on board so early, sir; for I have actually had a gang of eleven men alongside, who say they are looking for berths.”
“Eleven men!looking for berths!” I ejaculated, scarcely crediting my ears. “Where are they?”
“They went off up-town again, unfortunately, when I told them you were not on board,” replied Forbes. “But I have the address of the boarding-house at which they are staying, and I told them I would let them know when you could see them.”
“My dear fellow,” I exclaimed, “be off at once, and say that I shall be on board for the remainder of the day, and can see them at any time. Or, stay—perhaps I had better look in upon them myself; I can manage to drop in upon them in a casual sort of way, that will have less appearance of eagerness and anxiety than would sending especially for them. What did they look like?”
“Well,” admitted Forbes, “theylookedas rowdy a set of ruffians as I ever wish to set eyes on; but their manners and mode of speaking were those of fairly decent, respectable men. They said that they had been at the gold-fields for the last seven months, and had scarcely made enough to keep themselves; they were consequently tired of their shore life, and had determined to go to sea again if they could meet with a ship and officers to their liking. They were mightily taken with the barque—as of course any man who knew a ship from a washing-tub would be—swore she was the sweetest-looking craft in the harbour; and, when I mentioned your name, said they had heard of you and wouldn’t wish to go to sea under a better man. Altogether, if they are only in earnest as to their desire to go to sea again, I do not think you should find much difficulty in securing them, sir.”
“Give me their address,” said I, “and I will be off after them at once. This is not a time for fencing and feigning indifference; the fellows know, as well as you or I do, what a haul they will prove to the man who is lucky enough to secure them, so I will not run any risk of losing them by pretending otherwise. If I can persuade them to ship, I will sail to-morrow, short-handed though we should be. I can take the starboard watch myself; and, for the rest, we shall just have to keep an extra sharp eye upon the barometer and the weather, and be careful to snug down if need be in good time, until we again reach China, when we shall probably be able to get another man or two.” So saying, I took the address from Forbes, and forthwith started in search of the men. I found them at length, after a somewhat tedious quest, in a most disreputable-looking boarding-house, situate in the most disreputable part of the town. And I am bound to admit that my first impression of the men was that their appearance was in perfect accord with their surroundings. They most undoubtedly were, as Forbes had said, as rowdy-looking a set of ruffians as one would care to meet. Tough, sinewy desperadoes, swarthy as mulattoes by long exposure to the fierce southern sun, with long, dense, tangled thatches of hair mingling with a thick, neglected growth of beard and whisker that permitted scarcely a feature, save the nose and eyes, to be seen, clad in the remains of the inevitable flannel shirt, cord trousers, and knee-boots, with belts about their waists, in which each man carried his revolver and a formidable bowie-knife; the whole topped off with a soft, broad-brimmed, battered felt hat dashed on to the head in a fashion eloquently suggestive of the utmost extreme of recklessness,—I think I never saw a party of men who, under ordinary circumstances, I would have been less willing to ship as a crew than these. Yet, when I spoke to them, they answered me respectfully, and there was scarcely more than the merest tinge of that defiant independence of manner that their appearance had prepared me to expect. They told me, as they had told Forbes, that they had been working for something like seven months at the gold-fields, and had met with so little success that they were now almost penniless, a result which they attributed to their lack of experience as miners. One of the party remarked grimly that the life of a miner was even worse than that of a sailor; inasmuch as that, with an equal amount of exposure and harder work, it was no unusual thing for them to be reduced to starvation rations. Seven months’ experience of this kind, they said, had satisfied them that they were never intended for gold-miners; and they had accordingly left the fields in a body, and tramped to Sydney, determined to revert to their original occupation of seamen, and agreeing to ship together for home in the first craft that took their fancy.
“But,” said I, “I am not going directly to England. I am bound to the Pacific for a cargo of sandal-wood, and thence to China, before seeking a freight to England.”
“Oh, well,” said the fellow who had constituted himself the spokesman of the party, “that won’t make any great difference. The voyage ’ll be so much the longer, and we shall have the more money to take up at the end of it. The chief thing with us is to find a comfortable ship and a good skipper, and we’re of opinion that if we ship with you, we shall have both. Ain’t that so, mates?”
“Ay, ay, judge; that’s so, my bully. Them’s our sentiments. Right you are, as usual.”
In these and similar terse sentences, the men confirmed the remarks of their companion.
The question of wages was then raised, in respect of which I found their demands far more moderate than I had dared to hope; namely, five pounds ten per month for the seamen and the man who undertook to perform the duties of steward, and six pounds ten per month for the cook; each man to receive an Advance oftwomonths’ wages upon signing articles. To this I agreed without demur, and then, anxious to strike while the iron appeared to be hot, I suggested that they should sign articles forthwith. A short consultation among themselves followed this proposal, at the end of which they declared themselves quite willing, but stipulated that they should have twenty-four hours clear after signing, in which to provide themselves with an outfit for the voyage. To this I also assented, and we then separated, they to make their way to the shipping-office, and I to hurry down to the barque for the necessary papers and cash prior to joining them there.
It was just noon when, the work of signing the articles and paying the advances having been completed, I jumped into a cab to drive to the hotel at which the Desmonds were staying, to acquaint those good people with my latest stroke of luck. They were out, however, as I felt morally certain they would be; so I left a note for Sir Edgar, and then set about the transaction of such small items of business as were necessary prior to going to sea. This, however, amounted to very little, as I had practically completed all my preparations long before; so by five o’ clock in the evening I had cleared everything off my hands, and was once more alongside the ship. Here I found a note from Sir Edgar Desmond awaiting me, in which he acknowledged the receipt of my own epistle, and enjoined me to dine with them without fail that evening. This I did; and the upshot of it all was that they decided to complete the trip with me, despite the poor account I felt constrained to give them of my crew, and announced their intention of joining the ship immediately after lunch on the following day.
As I stretched myself out in my bunk that night, and reflected with a sigh of satisfaction that, if all went well, we should be once more at sea in less than twenty-four hours, the disagreeable suspicion for the first time obtruded itself upon my mind that possibly it might prove after all that I had been the victim of a clever swindle, and that I should never see anything more of any of the men to whom I had handed over two months’ advance so confidingly. However, about eleven o’clock the next morning, the first of them—William Rogers, the man whom I had shipped as boatswain—put in an appearance alongside, neatly dressed in a new suit of blue cloth, with cap, shirt, and shoes to match; also a brand-new chest and bundle of bedding; and coming on board, quietly went below and proceeded to arrange his belongings for the voyage. I was agreeably surprised at this man’s appearance; for whereas when I had shipped him on the previous day, he was ragged, dirty, and unkempt, he was now well-dressed, clean, and palpably fresh from the hands of the barber. Close upon his heels came Jacob Simpson, the cook, who had likewise undergone a renovating process that materially improved his appearance, although as I looked at the man there was a something about him that I did not quite like. For one thing, he seemed to remind me vaguely of somebody else—though who, I could not for the life of me say—who had left an unpleasant impression upon my mind; and, added to this, he was afflicted with an affection of the voice—the result of bush-fever, he informed me—which permitted him to speak only in a hoarse whisper. Next came Peter Gale, the man who had undertaken to perform the functions of steward, though he frankly admitted that he knew little or nothing about the duties of the post. But, since a steward we must have, and this man impressed me as being the most quiet and likely man for the berth, I had chosen him, since he had professed his readiness to try his hand and do his best. From this man I learned the pleasing intelligence that the remainder of the men were following him, and would be on board in about a quarter of an hour; so I introduced him to the lazarette, and directed him to obtain the cook’s assistance to break out a fresh barrel of beef, and get a dinner under way for the crew forthwith. About the time named by the steward, the main body made their appearance and came quietly on board. There were eight of them, namely, Hiram Barr and James Mckinley, Americans; Michael O’Connor, an Irishman; François Bourdonnais, a Frenchman; Carl Strauss, a German; Christian Christianssen, a Swede; Pedro Villar, a Portuguese; and James Nicholson (nicknamed “San Domingo,” from the island in which he was born), a full-blooded negro. They constituted a distinctly scratch crew, I was compelled to admit, as I watched them coming on board; but they all understood and spoke English; and although, with all their sprucing up, a few of them still wore a somewhat sinister appearance, every man of them was, for a wonder, perfectly sober, and they all bore themselves in a remarkably decent and orderly manner. Moreover, the eight last enumerated had all shipped as able seamen. In short, while perhaps they were not a crew that I would have selected from choice, I considered myself marvellously lucky in getting even them, and was more than content.
As soon as they were all aboard and had gone below, I sent word for’ard by the steward that they were to employ the interval until dinner-time in “shaking down,” and that after dinner we should proceed to rig out the jib-boom and unmoor the ship preparatory to going to sea. Then, leaving Forbes in charge, I went ashore and cleared the ship for the Pacific, paid the harbour and other dues, wrote and posted a few letters, and took lunch. Then down on board again, overtaking the Desmond party on the way; when, having shipped them and their somewhat multitudinous belongings, the windlass was manned, the cable hove short, the topsails sheeted home and mast-headed, the anchor tripped, and we were off, reaching the open sea just in time to see the sun disappear behind the land as we squared away upon a north-easterly course for Dick Saint Leger’s treasure island.
For a time all went merry as a marriage bell; the weather was simply perfect, with blue skies, brilliant sunshine, and gentle breezes, with charming glimpses of lovely tropical islands, day after day, when we reached the Fiji and Friendly Archipelagos and threaded our way through them. To add to the enjoyment of this time, the men were doing their duty in a manner that ought to have satisfied the most exacting of officers, and behaving with a quietness and steadiness of demeanour that was absolutely unexceptionable. They seemed always willing, and alwayscontent—a phenomenon that I had never hitherto met with on shipboard for longer than the first week after leaving a port.
I was consequently very much astonished when, one dark night, in the middle watch, when we had been at sea rather over a fortnight, Joe Martin, who was at the wheel, took advantage of a momentary pause I made beside him, to address me in the following terms:—
“Beg pardon, cap’n, but could you make it convenient to pitch into me, and give me a most tremenjious blowin’ up, and call me a lot of hard names afore all hands, to-morrow, some time in the second dog-watch, if I was to give you an excuse for so doin’?”
“Blow you up? abuse you? before all hands?” I ejaculated, as soon as my astonishment would allow me to speak. “Why, what in the name of all that is extraordinary do you mean, Martin?”
“Just exactly what I says, sir,” was the reply. “The fact is, there’s something brewin’ in the fo’c’s’le, and I want to get to the bottom of it. But I can’t, because the men have got the notion into their heads that I’m a bit of a favourite of yours, and they won’t trust me. So I want you to pitch into me, hot and heavy, before all hands, to-morrow; and then I’ll turn sulky, and start a good growl, and perhaps then they’ll say something to me.”
“But I don’t understand you, Joe,” I protested. “The men are the most quiet, willing, contented, well-behaved set of fellows it has ever been my pleasure to sail with; and do you mean to tell me that they are plotting mischief among themselves?”
“Well, sir, they’re plottin’something, that’s certain; and if it ain’t mischief, why do they keep me out of it?” argued Joe.
“How do you know—or rather, what makes you suppose they are plotting?” I asked.
“Why, they’re everlastin’ly whispering together,” was the reply. “If you’ll only take notice, sir, you’ll see that there’s never a minute, day nor night, but what two or three of ’em has got their heads together, palaverin’. And if ever I goes near and makes a show of chimin’ in, the talk’s stopped at once and changed to something else. And away along in the first dog-watch, for an hour or so, the steward ’ll come for’ard, and then they’ll all be as thick as thieves together, instead of turnin’ in and gettin’ their sleep, as honest men should. If it’s our eight hours out, our chaps slinks off down into the fo’c’s’le out o’ my way; and if it’s our eight hoursin, the whole watch except me ’ll be on deck until pretty nigh on to four bells. Pretends, they do, that the fo’c’s’le’s so hot they can’t sleep.Idon’t find it too hot to sleep.”
“And how do they behave to you?” I asked.
“Oh, as to that,” conceded Joe, “I haven’t got no fault to find. They’re all civil and friendly enough, exceptin’ cookie;hewon’t have a word to say to me, or come anigh me if he can help it; and, whatever it is, it’s my belief that he’s at the bottom of it. But the rest of ’em are all right, only they won’t have me in with ’em durin’ their confabs.”
“Pshaw! my good fellow,” I exclaimed, “you have found a mare’s nest. Their ‘confabs,’ as you call them, relate to nothing worse than their past experiences at the mines, I’ll be bound. And the reason why they will not speak about them to you is, most probably, because they think you would not be interested in them.”
“Well, sir, maybe you’re right,” remarked Joe, “but I don’t believe you are, all the same, if you’ll excuse my sayin’ so. There’s too much secrecy for everything to be quite right. And, if you don’t mind, I should like to try that little experiment I spoke about just now; if there’s nothing wrong it won’t matter, and if there is, perhaps they’ll be inclined to have me in with ’em, if they think I’ve fallen out of your favour.”
“Very well, Joe,” said I; “have your own way, if you like. I’ll not spare you if you do anything to vex me; only remember, my good fellow, that whatever I may say will only be said to humour you.”
“That’s all right, sir; and thank ye kindly. There’s just one thing more I’d like to say, sir, and then we’d better stop talkin’. It’s just this. Don’t you try to have any talk with me on the quiet like. You leave everything to me, sir, and as soon as I’ve found out anything I’ll make a chance to let you know, somehow.”
And so this remarkable conversation ended. Could there possibly be anything in Joe’s idea? The men seemed to be perfectly comfortable and contented; they appeared to desire nothing in the way of food or accommodation, beyond what they already possessed; they had not grumbled or made any complaint; what could they be plotting to obtain? I asked myself this question over and over again, and could find no answer to it; notwithstanding which, Joe’s communication made me feel exceedingly uneasy and anxious; so much so that, when I turned in, I found it quite impossible to get to sleep.
It may be readily imagined that when next I had an opportunity to observe the men I watched them, individually and collectively, most closely; yet, beyond the trivial circumstance that conversation always ceased if I happened to approach, I could detect nothing in the men’s demeanour to lend the slightest colour to Joe’s supposition. True, two or three of them—the Frenchman, the Portuguese, and the German, for instance—now impressed me as being scarcely so civil in their behaviour as they had been when they first joined the ship; but that, after all, might be only my fancy; and, if it were not, one hardly looks for such good behaviour from foreigners as one is wont to receive from Englishmen.
As for Joe Martin, he began his operations bright and early on the morning following his conversation with me. He was now the ship’s carpenter, and in that capacity he had received orders on the previous day to fit a new set of stern-sheets in the port quarter-boat. This job he began the first thing in the morning, swinging her inboard and lowering her to the deck for his greater convenience during the progress of the work. This simple matter he managed so clumsily that he contrived to bilge the boat, necessitating the renewal of three timbers and a plank. I was on deck at the time of the accident, and, forgetting for the moment his scheme to provoke a seeming quarrel with me, I cautioned him about the awkward, lubberly way in which he was proceeding, and recommended him to get more help. He replied, in an offhand, careless way, that he was quite man enough todo sucha job as that without anybody’s help; and, as he spoke, down came the boat with a crash, and the damage was done. The whole thing seemed such a piece of pig-headed stupidity that I was thoroughly exasperated with the fellow, and gave him a good sound rating; much, apparently, to the amusement of the other men. Joe said nothing by way of excuse—indeed, any attempt to excuse himself would have been so wholly out of place as only to have increased his offence—but he slouched away forward, muttering to himself, and I noticed him stop and say a word or two to a couple of men who were at work upon the forecastle.ThenI remembered his proposal, and bethought me that this might be his way of carrying out his plan; if so, I could not help admiring his ingenuity, albeit still decidedly annoyed with him for the powerful realism with which he was playing his little comedy.
The boat lay as she had fallen for fully an hour; meanwhile Joe had vanished. This cool behaviour on his part nettled me still more; and at length I directed the boatswain to pass the word for Joe to come aft. Upon which Joe made his appearance, obviously from the forecastle, wearing that sulky, sullen look that always exasperated me more thoroughly than anything else, whenever I met with it in a man (I am afraid I am rather a short-tempered individual at times); and I gave him such a wigging as four hours earlier I would not have believed possible; ordering him not to waste any more time, but to set to work at once to repair the damage occasioned by his clumsiness. Whether or no Joe began to guess from my manner that he had gone a trifle too far, I know not; but he at once went to work as I had ordered him, and worked, moreover, with such a will that by eight bells in the afternoon watch the damage was repaired and the boat as good as ever she was, save for a lick of paint over the new work. This want Joe now proceeded, with a great show of zeal, to supply, procuring a pot of paint and a brush, with which he came bustling aft. Now, if there is one thing upon which I pride myself more than another, it is the scrupulous cleanliness of my decks; conceive, therefore, if you can, the extremity of my disgust and annoyance when I saw Joe catch the naked toes of his right foot in the corner of a hen-coop, and, in his agony, drop the pot of paint upon my beautifully clean poop, of course spilling the whole contents. It is true that, forgetting his pain the next moment, he dropped upon his knees and contrived, by scooping up the spilled paint in the palms of his hands, to replace a considerable proportion of it in the pot; but after he had done his best with canvas and turpentine a horrible unsightly blotch still remained to mar the hitherto immaculate purity of the planks, and it is therefore not to be wondered at if I again administered a sound and hearty rating to the culprit, this time in the presence and hearing of all hands. It was all the more vexatious to me that, instead of expressing any contrition for his carelessness, Joe persistently maintained the surly demeanour he had exhibited more or less throughout the day.
My anger, however, was short-lived, and by the time that I had had an hour or two for reflection I could not help feeling that I had been decidedly harsh and severe with the fellow for what was practically his first offence; moreover, he had always hitherto behaved so exceedingly well, and had proved himself such a splendid workman, that he had become a great favourite with me. When, therefore, during dinner, Sir Edgar made some half-jesting remark about Joe’s misdeeds, I was far more disposed to make excuses for the man than to maintain a semblance of that annoyance I had so conspicuously exhibited during the day: nevertheless, I deemed it politic to do the latter, particularly while the steward was about; as I felt that, if the rest of the men were indeed traitors, the steward was probably the same, and would, in any case, be pretty certain to repeat in the forecastle whatever might be said in the cabin as to Joe’s misdemeanours.
It was Joe’s trick at the wheel that night for the first half of the first watch; but, as the passengers were about the deck during the whole time, I made no attempt to enter into confidential communication with him, and I had no other opportunity that night. On the following day his misdeeds were not quite so egregious, but he still contrived to behave like a man who considered himself aggrieved; and when his trick at the wheel came round again, during the first half of the afternoon watch, he steered so carelessly, and ran the ship off her course so abominably, that I had at last to send him away from the wheel, and summon another man in his place; taking the fullest advantage, at the same time, of the opportunity thus afforded to give him another good rating, hot and heavy, as I felt that he intended I should.
His turn to “grind water” came round again at the latter half of the middle watch, and when he came aft at four bells to relieve the wheel I took care to be at hand with a reminder of his shortcomings during the previous afternoon, and the stern expression of a hope that he would give me no further cause to complain of him. And, not content with that, I took up a position near him with an air that was intended to convey to the retiring helmsman my determination to keep a strict eye upon Master Joe’s conduct during the remainder of the watch.
Joe waited a minute or two, to allow the other man to get fairly out of hearing forward, and then remarked—
“I’m afraid, sir, I rather overdone the thing yesterday, a-stavin’ in the gig, and then capsizin’ the paint. If I did, I hope you’ll forgive me, sir, and remember as I done it for the best.”
“Overdid it? Did it for the best?” I ejaculated. “Why, confound you, man, do you mean to tell me that you did those thingsintentionally?”
“Of course I did, sir,” answered Joe, in much lower tones than my own, obviously with the intention of putting me on my guard. “You see, sir, them chaps for’ard are pretty cute; they’re too old birds to be caught with chaff; and I knew that if I was to get on the blind side of ’em, it’d have to be by means of throwin’ you into a genuine, downright passion with me. Besides, if you’ll excuse me for sayin’ of it, Captain Saint Leger, you ain’t much of a hactor, sir; you’re altogether too fair, and straightfor’ard, and aboveboard to be able to deceive, or fight on equal terms with a lot of sharp, sly, underhand, sneakin’ beggars like them in the fo’c’s’le. So says I to myself, ‘Joe,’ says I, ‘ifyouwants that crowd to believe as you’re out of the skipper’s favour, and are ready to join ’em in any mischief they may be hatchin’, you’ve got to do somethin’ to make the cap’n real downright savage with yer.’ And that’s why I done it, sir. I’m boun’ to allow that the capsizin’ of that there paint was perhaps a-comin’ of it aleetletoo strong; but—”
“Oh, that’s all right, Joe,” I interrupted. “There is no doubt about the fact that you succeeded in making me genuinely angry with you; the important question now is, has it had the effect that you anticipated? Have the other men shown any disposition to take you into their confidence and make you a participator in the plot or whatever it is that you suppose them to be hatching?”
“Well, no, sir, not exactly,” Joe admitted. “But I’m in hopes that they will afore long, if this here unpleasantness between me and you goes on. At present, you see, they don’t know but what it may be a temp’ry thing as’ll soon blow over; but if they finds that you’ve got a sort of spite again’ me, and are always down upon me and drivin’ me to desperation, as you may say, they’ll be pretty certain to have a try to get me over on their side. You see, sir, I’m about as strong as e’er a man aboard here, and if them chaps are up to mischief they’ll nat’rally prefer to have me with ’em instead of again’ ’em.”
“Undoubtedly they will,” I agreed. “But, Joe, you have not yet told me exactly what it is that you suspect. If they were dissatisfied with their food, or their treatment, or their accommodation, would they not come aft and make a complaint, and endeavour to get the matter rectified in that way? But they never have done so; and indeed I cannot imagine what they have to be dissatisfied with: their food is all of the very best description it was possible to obtain; the forecastle is as roomy and comfortable a place as you will meet with in any ship of this size; and, as to work, I do not think they have much to complain of on that score.”
“No, sir, no; it ain’t nothing of that sort,” asserted Joe. “It’s my belief, sir, as they’ve somehow got wind ofthe treasure, and that it’s that they’re after.”
“The treasure?” I exclaimed in blank astonishment. “What treasure?”
“Why, the treasure as you expects to find on this here island as we’re bound for. Lor’ bless you, sir,” continued Joe, noting the consternation that his unexpected communication had occasioned me, “we all knowed about it in the fo’c’s’le—the old hands, I mean—afore the ship arrived in Sydney Harbour. It was the steward as brought the news for’ard to us one night. He was a curious chap, he was, as inquisitive as a monkey; he always wanted to know the ins and outs of everything that was goin’ on, and he’d noticed you porin’ and puzzlin’ over a paper with a lot of figures wrote on it, and a drorin’ in the middle; and he used to come for’ard and tell us that you’d been havin’ another try to find out what them figures meant. And one night—it was when we was gettin’ well on toward Sydney—he comes for’ard in great excitement, and he says, says he, ‘I’m blowed if the skipper haven’t been and found out at last the meanin’ of that paper that he’s been puzzlin’ over durin’ the whole of this blessed voyage; and what do you suppose it is?’ says he.
“Well, in course we said we didn’t know; and some of us said we didn’t care either, seein’ that it wasn’t any business of ours.
“‘Oh, ain’t it?’ says he. ‘P’r’aps you won’t say it ain’t no business of yours when you know what it is,’ he says.
“‘Well,’ says one of the men—it were Bill Longman—‘if you thinks as it concerns us, why don’t you up and tell us what it is, instead of hangin’ in the wind like a ship in irons?’ says he.
“So then the steward he tells us as how, that mornin’ whilst you was all at breakfast in the saloon, he’d heard you tellin’ about a dream you’d had the night before; and how you started up in the middle of the meal and rushed off to your state-room, and stayed there a goodish while, and then went up on deck and told Sir Edgar as you’d discovered the meanin’ of the paper, which was all about how to find a treasure that was buried on a desert island somewhere; and that you intended to go on to Sydney and discharge your cargo, and then take in ballast and sail for the Pacific to find this here island and get the treasure.
“Of course when he’d finished tellin’ us about it there was a great palaver about buried treasure, and pretty nigh every man in the fo’c’s’le pretended to have heard of a similar case; and we all agreed as you was a lucky man, and we hoped as how you’d find the island, and the treasure too. And by-and-by, after there had been a good deal of talk of that sort, Bill Longman up and says, ‘But, George,’ he says to the steward, ‘you haven’t told us yet how this here affair concarns us?’
“‘Oh, well,’ says George, with a curious kind of a laugh, ‘if you don’tseeas how it concarns us, why of course there ain’t no more to be said.’ And that was all we could get out of the steward that night.
“But a night or two afterwards, Master George brings up the subject again by sayin’ that he don’t suppose it’s likely as you’ll offer to share this here treasure with all hands, supposin’ that you find it. And then he goes on to say that, for his part, he don’t see as the treasure is yours any more than it’s anybody else’s, and that, in his opinion, if it’s ever found, all hands ought to share and share alike. And some of the chaps seemed to think he was right, and others they didn’t, and Bill up and says—
“‘Look here, George,’ he says, ‘supposin’ when we gets ashore at Sydney you was to find a bag of sovereigns in the street, would you share ’em with us?’
“George said that ’d be a different thing altogether from findin’ a treasure on a desert island; and we all had a long argyment about it, and couldn’t agree; and, after that, the steward talked a good deal more about all sharin’ alike in the treasure, and that if we was all of one mind it could be done, and a lot more stuff of the same kind. But we all laughed at him; and then came the arrival of the ship in Sydney, and George bein’ paid off, and after that I heard nothin’ more about the treasure.”
“And what makes you imagine that the new men have got hold of the story?” I asked.
“Well, sir,” said Joe, “it’s just one or two little things I’ve overheard said. The first thing as ever made me suspect that there was somethin’ up was the mention of the word ‘treasure.’ Cookie is the man as seems to know most about it—he’s everlastin’ly talkin’ about it—and I fancy he must have fallen in with the steward somewheres ashore and heard the whole story from him.”
“And what has the cook to say about it?” I inquired.
“Ah, that’s just what I wants to find out,” answered Joe. “They won’t say anything to me about it, but just sits whisperin’ with their heads together away for’ard in the far end of the fo’c’s’le, and I notices as it’s always the cook as has most to say. He and Rogers seems to be the leadin’ spirits in the job, whatever it is.”
“So your little scheme of yesterday has borne no fruit, thus far?” I suggested.
“Well, not much,” said Joe. “But then, I don’t expect ’em to take me into their secrets right off the reel, the first time that I misbehave myself. But I believe they’ll have a try to get me in with ’em before they tries to carry out their plans. Last night, when I was sittin’ on my chest, grumblin’ and growlin’ at the way I’d been treated durin’ the day,”—here Joe laughed softly as the peculiar humour of the situation seemed to present itself to him—“the cook wanted to know whether I wouldn’t rather be a rich man than have to go to sea for the rest of my days; but Rogers stopped him with a look, and said, ‘Now, doctor, you leave Joe alone, and don’t go puttin’ no nonsensical notions into his head. You leave him to me; perhaps I may have somethin’ to say to him myself by-and-by, and I don’t want nobody to interfere at all in this here matter.’ And that’s how the thing stands at present.”
“Very well,” said I. “You have told me enough to satisfy me that your conjectures are by no means as groundless as I supposed them to be, and you must do your best, Joe, to find out what you can. But you will have to beverycareful what you are about: it is clear enough that, if they meditate treachery of any kind, they are not yet at all disposed to trust you; and if they at all contemplate the possibility of winning you over to join them, they will set all manner of traps for you, and test you in every conceivable way before making up their minds to trust you.”
“Yes,” assented Joe, “I expects they will. But I’m all ready for ’em, whenever they likes; I’ve got my course all marked out, clear and straight; and, if Rogers or any of the others comes soundin’ me, they’ll be surprised to find what a downright bad character I am, and how ready I am to take a hand in any mischief that’s brewin’.”