The ship Nancy Hazlewoodof Philadelphia was lostat sea on the 26 of Apl.1813. The 1st & 2d matesby name John Kent Baldwinand Thomas Granger werewrecked on ths. Islnd. Ifyou are a Christn. come tothr. aid.
This I have copied from a slip of bark that Captain Williamson afterward gave me.
Thus they settled and lived on the island with little of interest happening in their lives, until the great hurricane of 1814 came upon them. This was great in itself, but it brought that with it which let them have no more idle days for a long time to come.
I SUPPOSE that there are very few people who read this story that have not heard of the great hurricane of 1814, for I take it that very few will read what I have written who are not in some way related or connected with Tom Granger, and all such have heard him tell of it again and again. Nevertheless, as I have ink and paper before me, and as the itch of writing is upon me, I will tell it once more for the benefit of those who come hereafter, and who have not heard of it from Tom’s own mouth.
This hurricane reached over a zone stretching in breadth from Florida to the Greater Antilles. It was felt more heavily in the northern part than anywhere else; so that Tom and Jack passed through the worst of it. One hundred and eight vessels were wrecked in the harbors and on the coast of this region during the progress of the hurricane, and the death-list was known to reach as high as one hundred and six. The crops suffered severely, and over seven hundred houses were destroyed.
A few years ago, while I was spending a coupleof weeks at Atlantic City with my wife and two of my grandchildren, I met a Mr. Fitzgerald. He was a lad living at Nassau at the time of this hurricane, and he not only remembered it well, but his father, who was a gentleman much interested in scientific matters, had kept careful data and memoranda relating to it.
Mr. Fitzgerald was a very bright and intelligent old gentleman at the time that I met him, and I was much interested in talking the matter over with him, and comparing notes regarding it. The storm was severe enough with Tom and Jack, but it must have been terrible indeed in a place where there were so many lives to be lost and so much property to be destroyed as in Nassau. He told me that the storm began with them about ten o’clock in the night of the fourth of March, and blew with great violence until half-past ten o’clock in the morning of the fifth. The barometer at that time stood at 27.06 inches, which was the lowest that his father had ever seen it. From that time the storm subsided, and the torrents of rain began to cease, though the wind continued to blow with violence until four o’clock in the afternoon. But all the great loss of life and property happened in the space of twelve hours, and while the hurricane was at its height.
The storm began at an earlier hour with Jack and Tom than it did at Nassau, according to Mr. Fitzgerald’s account of it. I know, however, that it came on the fourth of March, because that is theday before Tom’s birthday, which comes on the fifth; therefore I am accurate in regard to my dates, even if Mr. Fitzgerald had not corroborated the account that I have always given of it.
It was a peculiarly sultry day, especially for that time of the year. Tom and Jack were fishing in the morning, and, though they were sitting still, the sweat kept running from Tom’s face in streams, as though he was engaged in doing a hard piece of work. All morning there was a dead stillness and a leaden heaviness in the air, and it seemed as though it was a labor even to breathe. The sea gulls kept flying around the reef in a troubled way, clamoring as they flew, and seeming to be restless and uneasy at the oppressive stillness. The sky in the morning was of a dull copperish color, though not a cloud was to be seen, but, as the day wore along, a misty haze spread above them, through which the sun shone red and dull, as it does in the morning and evening, when it is near to the horizon. Once Jack said:
“Tom, there’s something going to happen. I never felt anything like this in all my life before; and did you ever see the sea gulls behaving as they are doing now? Mark my words, Tom, there’s something going to come of all this before the day’s over.”
Tom agreed with him in his forebodings, for the oppression that he was laboring under made him feel singularly apprehensive and uneasy in his mind. In the afternoon they left their fishing andwent back to their hut, where they stretched themselves out in the shade, panting for breath, for it seemed as though a hot blanket had been spread above them. The tame sea gull sat under the lee of the boat, all hunched up together. Every now and then it would look restlessly about, uttering a low, whimpering note as it did so.
About four o’clock in the afternoon, as near as Tom could judge, a strong puff of wind blew suddenly from the south. It ceased as suddenly as it began, but, in a few minutes a gust as sudden and as short-lived blew from the west. Then it blew again, but from the eastward. This time it was more steady, and in a quarter of an hour it had increased to a smart gale. It seemed to bring some coolness with it, and lifted the oppressed feeling that had rested upon Tom and Jack during the morning. Within an hour or so of sundown this wind died away completely, and then it was as heavy, and as still, and as sultry as ever. Then half an hour passed before anything farther happened.
Jack and Tom were busy scaling and cleaning their fish when, all of a sudden, a shadow fell as though a hand had been stretched out across the sky. Jack ran out of the hut with his knife in his hand, and the next moment Tom heard him calling to him in a loud voice, bidding him to hurry out and look at what was coming. Then Tom dropped everything and ran.
As I said before, there was not a breath of air stirring, and yet a black ragged wrack of cloudswas flying wildly above their heads. This bellying sheet of clouds hung very low in the air; above them it was of a dull leaden color, rimmed with a strange reddish light, but toward the west it was as black as ink. Although there was no wind going, a cold air seemed to breathe out of the black emptiness of the west, just such as you may feel when you open the door of a cool room in the summer time. The ocean near to them was grey, with the light from the east, and every now and then a white-cap would gleam, with a pallid light against the darkness behind; but in the distance it grew darker and darker, until the rim of the horizon was lost in the inky pall beyond. Every moment the gloom fell about them, until it seemed as though night had set in, though it was a good hour till sundown. A dull, whispering moaning sound came from out the hollow of the west, and Tom could hear it through all the beating and thundering of the surf behind him. There was something awful in that moaning that seemed to fill the air above and around them; both men stood looking out toward the west, and neither of them said a word. Tom noticed how the sea gulls were running restlessly up and down the beach, uttering shrill wild cries every now and then, but not taking to wing.
And every moment the deep moaning grew louder and louder.
Suddenly a faint breath of air came, and instantly the sound of the surf to the east was dulled asthough a blanket had been spread over it. Then there was a pause,—then there was a wild sweep of the wind,—then, in an instant, the hollow roar was upon them and around them.
Out from the blackness of the west came rushing an awful grey cloud of mist and rain and salt spray, and before I can write these words, it struck the island with a tremendous and thunderous uproar. Tom and Jack were flung backward and down to the ground as though a wall had fallen upon them, and all around them was a blinding gloom of sand and rain and spray. Through this whirling darkness Tom saw the cutter lifted up and tossed over and over like a dead leaf. Even through all the uproar he could distinctly hear the noise of snapping and rending and tearing, as the trees and bushes of the thicket near to them were being torn up by the roots. Then he had a vision of one of the palmetto trees being whirled through the air as though it were a straw.
For a while he lay clinging flat to the ground, digging his fingers into the sand; but after a while he saw that Jack was crawling on his hands and knees toward the lee of the sand hills, not far away from where they lay; then he followed him in like manner.
It was a great while before they got safely to the shelter of the duns; I suppose that it could not have taken them less than half an hour to cross the two hundred yards of sand that lay between them and the lee of the sand hills. Every now and thena heavier gust than usual would come, and then they would lay flat upon the sand again, holding on to the shifting surface, as though they feared being blown bodily away. But between the gusts they would contrive to crawl a few feet farther.
At last they reached the lee of the hills, and so were sheltered from the full force of the wind, though the hurricane bellowed and roared above and around them with a noise such as Tom never heard before or since.
The rain increased till it fell in torrents; it did not beat down the wind, for the tempest blew more and more heavily until just before morning, when it was something frightful.
All that night the rain poured down upon them in a deluge, but I do not think that either of them noticed it, their minds being taken up with quite different matters. The darkness around them was utter and blank beyond what I can tell you. You could not have seen your hand within six inches of your face. It seemed as though the end of all things had come.
Tom and Jack sat hand in hand;—when one of them said anything to the other, he had to put his lips to within an inch of his companion’s ear, to make him understand a single word. But very little was said between them, and most of the time they sat holding one another’s hand in silence. Now and then the ground would actually tremble beneath them, and at times a dim fear passed through Tom’s mind that the very sand hill abovethem would be carried bodily away with the force of that tremendous blast. About day-break, or what would have been day-break at an ordinary time, the rain ceased to fall, though the hurricane still raged with nearly as much fury as ever.
At last the faint grey daylight came, and after a while they were able to see the things around them pretty clearly. The first thing that Tom saw was a white sea gull crouched on the ground close to him. He could have reached out his hand and have touched it, but it did not seem to be in the least afraid at his presence. There were hundreds of them around, but they all seemed to be dulled with terror, and made no effort to move out of the way, or to take to flight.
At length, in the dim morning light, the ocean came out before them; it was a strange sight, for the surf was beaten down by the wind, until the sand beach reached out half as far again as it did on ordinary occasions.
At first they could see nothing of the sandy hook to the southward, for, though no sea was running, and though the ocean was leveled to a seething sheet of whiteness, the water was banked up in the bay, and covered the sand spit completely. The first thought that occurred to Tom was that the whole bar had been swallowed up, and that there had been an earthquake, though they had not noticed it in all the bewilderment of the tempest. But, as the light grew stronger and stronger, they could see the gleam of wet sand here and there,and then could see the water running over it from the bay to the ocean.
By this time the storm was beginning to fall, though they did not dare to leave their shelter for an hour or so later, and though the wind was still heavy until the middle of the afternoon.
When they did leave the lee of the hill, the sight was strange enough; the palmetto trees were all gone but one, and it was more than half stripped of leaves.
One of them had been carried more than a quarter of a mile, and was now lying half buried in the sand at the base of the dun, beneath which they had taken shelter.
There was not a sign of their home in the sand hill, for not only was the place levelled over as completely as though it had never been, but the very shape of the hills themselves had been changed by the sand that had blown against them here, or had been carried away from them there.
The cutter had been swept away to a distance of two or three hundred yards. It had lodged in a hollow between two of the duns. It was lying keel up, and the sand was banked around the weather side of it like a snowdrift. Strange enough, it was not much more broken than it had been before, so they got it back again in a day or two, and it was still sound enough to serve for their roof for the balance of the time that they stayed on the island.
The great stack of brushwood that they had heaped on the highest sand-dun had all beencarried away, as had also their signal tree with the bush lashed to it. Everything was salt with the spray that had been carried inland, and the island flats were dotted all over with pools of salt water, that had been blown or swept over the land. Wherever this salt water lay the grass was killed or blackened, so that the following summer the island looked as though fire had passed over it.
Such was the great hurricane of 1814 as Tom Granger and Jack Baldwin felt it; and I think that they both felt it in its full force, though they escaped from it with no more harm than a thorough wetting and a great fright. It took them several weeks to do what they could at making good the damage done, and then it was not fully repaired, for all the provisions that they had stored up had been carried away or had been covered up by the sand that had been blown before the blast.
I think that the greatest loss that they suffered was that of Tom’s jack-knife. He had left it lying beside the fish that he was in the act of cleaning when Jack had called to him and he had run out of the hut. They looked for it every now and then for several days afterward, digging about the place where it had been lost; but their hut or cave in the sand hill had been so completely covered, and the lay of the hill itself had been so entirely changed, that they never found it again.
The loss of a jack-knife may seem but a small thing to tell you, who have only had to slip around the corner and buy a new one at the nearesthardware shop. But there was no hardware shop near to Jack and Tom, and the loss of the jack-knife was a very great ill to them.
Neither did they ever see the tame sea-gull again, and they missed the sight of it from the keel of the upturned boat. I suppose that it must have been swept away and have perished in the hurricane.
AND now a little more than a week had passed since the great hurricane of which I have just told you fell upon them. I recollect that it was a Sunday morning. Sundays were generally spent in doing no work, and in taking a stroll around the island. But they had had no rest since the day of the storm, for the time between then and now had all been spent in repairing the damages that had been wrought. Now they were pretty comfortably settled again, and the day being bright and fair, they had fixed that it should be spent in taking a look about them.
It was cool and pleasant, and they strolled leisurely up the western side of the island, skirting the belt of Mangrove bushes, around the northern end, past the barren sand flat, and so down the Atlantic beach again. By the middle of the afternoon they had come back to the lower end of the island, and had gone out on to the spit.
The water that had washed over this place on the day of the storm had carried away a great deal of the sand. The surf ran much farther up the beach, and Tom noticed that the ribs of the wreckstood higher out of the sand than he had ever seen them. They did not go farther than the wreck, but laid themselves down close to it, looking out across the water toward the distant island that was then looming to the southward, talking about it and about their chances of getting to it.
Jack was in a more than usually downhearted state as to their not being able to get away from the place that they were on. He said that so far as he could see, they might have to live there all their lives and then die, and no one be the wiser of it. Tom was feeling gloomy himself on this particular day, and he felt very impatient at poor Jack when he began his complaining. He felt that if complaints were to be made, it was he that should make them, and not Jack, for had he not much more to lose by staying where he was than the other? I know how selfish this was, but there are times when we are given over to spells of selfishness, and, though such a state may be very wrong, it is yet very natural.
“You might just as well have patience, Jack,” said he, “We’ve tried to get away already, and you know what came of it. We certainly can’t live here forever without sighting a vessel of some sort at some time or other.”
“We haven’t seen a sign of a ship up to this time,” said Jack, gloomily.
“That’s very true, and maybe we’ll have to wait till the war’s over before one comes along. You know very well that there’s no shipping being done nowadays.”
“Wait till the war’s over!” cried Jack, raising himself suddenly on his elbow; “why, heavens and earth, man, it may be half a dozen years to come, before the war’s over!”
“Perhaps it may be a dozen years, for all that I know,” said Tom, “but all the same you’ll have to wait, so you may just as well keep your tongue still between your teeth, and be patient about it!”
“Wait?” cried Jack, and he thumped his clenched fist down on the sand. “By G—I’ll not wait! I’ll do something; see if I don’t! I’ll not let any twenty miles of water keep me tied up in this God-forsaken place! Why don’t you do something? You’re so full of your d—d contrivances for making us comfortable; why don’t you puzzle out some plan for getting us off altogether?”
Tom was lying on the sand, his hands under his head, and one leg crossed comfortably over the other. He did not move while Jack was talking, and he made a point of seeming to be very easy under it, but he was getting more and more angry all the time. He did not answer Jack immediately, but after a while he spoke as quietly as he could.
“You’re unreasonable, Jack,” said he. “Haven’t I done everything that I could do to get us away; haven’t I built a raft and put up signals on the sand hills; haven’t I set a dozen or more bladder-bags adrift? The chances are that some of them’ll be picked up, and in good time a ship’ll come to us. I don’t see that you have any reason to complain, and if you have reason, you’d better try to dosomething yourself;—you’re welcome to it. As for our getting away;—we’ve tried to get away already, and you know what came of it. In my opinion we came so devilish near getting away, that we liked never to have got back to this or to any other island.”
“Do you mean to say that you’re so scared at a little risk that you’re afraid to try it over again?”
“I don’t know about being scared, but I certainly ain’t going to try it over again.”
“You ain’t?”
“No.”
Jack did not say a word for a little while, but Tom felt that he was looking at him very hard. At last he spoke again.
“It’s my belief, Tom Granger,” said he, “that you haven’t got an ounce of pluck left about you. I believe that you’re that dull that you’d be content to live here forever, if you could get enough to fill your belly!”
This was too much for Tom. He sat up suddenly, facing the other. “Jack Baldwin,” said he, and his voice trembled with his anger, “understand me, once for all. If we’re to live together, or to talk together, or to have anything to do with one another, I never want to hear such speech from your mouth as you’ve just given me; do you understand me?”
Here he paused for a moment, and then he burst out passionately: “What do you know how much I want to get away? Do you suppose that I don’twant to get away because I don’t keep up an everlasting whimpering and whining about it, as you do? What do you want to get away for, anyhow? Is the only woman that you love in all the world waiting at home for you, looking for you, and praying for you, and wondering why she don’t hear from you—thinking, maybe, that you’re dead. God help her! I wish that I was dead, and that she knew it. It would be better for us both, I guess!” Then he rested his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his hands, rocking his body to and fro as he sat.
Jack did not say another word, and in a few moments Tom heard him get up and walk away. After a little while Tom got a grip on himself and looked up again.
Jack was standing just below the wreck and over toward the ocean. He had gathered what seemed to be a handful of small, black, flat shells, and he was busy in skimming them out across the surf. Presently Tom got up and walked slowly over to where he was standing. He was heartily ashamed of the way in which he had spoken to the other, and would have given a great deal if he could only have recalled his words; but that is a thing that can never be done. He stood a little behind Jack, with his hands in his breeches pockets, looking down at the sand the while. After a while Jack spoke, without looking around.
“Look’ee, Tom Granger,” said he, doggedly, “I’m sorry I spoke to you the way that I did. Ididn’t know that you had a sweetheart at home,—you ought to ha’ told me before. I’ll never say any more about getting away, if I have to stay on this d—d island to the crack of doom, and that I promise you.”
“That’s all right,” muttered Tom; “don’t let’s say any more about it.”
One of the round black things that Jack was skimming out to sea, lay at his feet, and without knowing what he did, he stooped and picked it up as he was speaking. He turned it over and over in his palm in an absent sort of a way, for he was feeling very uncomfortable at the time.
He turned it over and over, until, after a while, it worked through his sight into his mind; then he looked more closely at it, for he had never seen the like of it before. It was not a shell, neither was it a pebble, for there were no pebbles on the island. It was thin and perfectly round, and as black as ink. On one side of it was a raised surface that bore a faint likeness to the rude image of a head; below this was something that looked like a row of small figures. He brushed it smooth with the palm of his hand, and then looked more closely at it, turning it around and around, and this way and that. All of a sudden a thought struck him, and I cannot describe the thrill that went through him as he looked at that which he held. As this thought went through his mind, he closed his hand and looked slowly around him, as though he was in a dream. I can distinctly recollect that that singularfeeling which we all have felt at times passed over him;—a feeling as though all this had happened before, but as though it had happened in a dream. Then he looked at the object once more, and could just make out the figures;—they were 1, 7, 9 and 2. He picked at the edge of the disk, and a white sparkle followed the scratching of his thumb nail.
“Good Lord, Jack!” cried he, “look! look!”
There was a ring in his voice that made Jack jump as though he had been struck. “Look at what, Tom?” said he, in a half-frightened voice.
“Look at this!” said Tom, and he held out that which he had picked up a minute before. “What do you think it is?”
Jack had three or four of them in his own hand. “I don’t know,” said he, turning them over and over. Suddenly he too began to look more closely at them. “Why, Tom—Tom—” he began, “is it—is it—”
“It’s money;—it’s silver money, Jack, as sure as I am a living sinner!”
“Why, so it is!” cried Jack, “why, so it is, Tom! This is a half a dollar, and so is this, and this, and this! Why, Tom, here’s another, and another! Great heavens, Tom!the sand’s covered with them!”
And so it was. Here and there would be two or three lying together, but in most cases they were scattered about like shells at high water mark. Jack sat down quite overcome, and then began laughing in a foolish sort of a way, but there was acatch in his laugh that sounded mightily like crying. “Tom,” said he, “we’re rich men! Tom, did you ever see or hear of the like? Why, Tom—”
Then he stopped all of a sudden, and, scrambling to his feet, fell to gathering up the money as though he had been crazy.
For an hour or more they hunted up and down, picking up silver pieces as children pick up chestnuts under a chestnut tree. After a while they only found a few stray coins here and there, and finally they cleared the beach of them altogether. Then they sat down to count them. Tom had about two hundred dollars; Jack had gathered more nearly three hundred than two. Altogether they had a little less than five hundred dollars between them.
“Where do you suppose they came from, Tom?” said Jack, after a while. He was sitting on the sand when he spoke, holding a lot of the coins in his hand and turning them over with his fingers.
Tom shook his head. This was the same thought that had been puzzling him for some time past, and, as yet, he had not been able to answer it.
After a while they went back to their hut, carrying their money with them. Jack was very talkative and excited, but Tom was as silent as the other was noisy, for he was pondering over the matter of Jack’s question—Where did they all come from?
Where did they all come from? He thought and thought till his brain was muddled with his thinking. Could there have been a treasure buriedhere by the buccaneers in times past? It was a wild thought, but Tom was ready for any kind of wild thought at the time. But then the date of the coin that he had found—1792—that was long after the time of the buccaneers. He picked up another piece and looked at it; it also bore the same date, 1792, and so did another and another; they were all of the same mintage. He did not know what to think of it.
Jack must have had a notion that Tom was puzzling his wits over this, for he sat beside the fire all of the evening without saying a word. Every now and then he arose and threw some more brushwood on the flames; beyond that he hardly moved, but sat in silence, watching Tom furtively.
“Tom,” said he, at last.
“Well, Jack.”
“Do you suppose that it couldrainmoney?”
“Stuff and nonsense!”
“I don’t see any stuff and nonsense about it. I’ve heard of it raining stones, and why shouldn’t it rain money as well? We never found any before that hurricane came on us.”
“That’s true enough, Jack,” said Tom, “I hadn’t thought of that.” For the finding of this money had driven all thought of the hurricane out of his head.
“Then you think it might have rained money, after all?”
“No; I don’t think that.”
“Humph! Well, what do you think about it?”
“I don’t know what to think about it; but you’ve put a new idea into my head.”
It was later than usual when they went to rest that night. Tom laid awake hour after hour, his thoughts as busy as bees. Where had the money come from? This was the question that ran through his brain unceasingly, keeping him awake as the silent night moved along. And then, why should all the coins bear the same date of 1792?
Suddenly the whole thing opened before him, and he saw it all as clearly as I see the hand before my face. He could hardly help shouting aloud, but he bethought him that Jack might be asleep, and that it would be a pity to awaken him.
“Jack,” whispered he, in a low voice.
“Helloa!” said the other, quickly, for he was wide awake.
“I think I’ve found it out!”
“Found out what?”
“Found where the money came from.”
“Well, where did it come from?” said Jack, and Tom could see in the gloom that he sat up in his excitement.
“Did you notice that all the money bore the same date, 1792?” said Tom.
“No; I didn’t notice that.”
“Well, it did, and, what’s more, it’s all Spanish money.”
“But where did it come from?” said Jack.
“Jack,” said Tom, slowly, “as sure as I’m lyinghere, that wreck on the sand-spit is the wreck of a Spanish treasure ship.”
“Tom!” shouted Jack, “you’re right! What a fool I was not to think of that! Why, it’s as plain as the nose on your face!”
No doubt you who read this have guessed the matter long ago, and have wondered that Tom and Jack were so dull of wits as not to have thought of it before. But the idea never entered their heads that a fortune was lying buried in the sand that covered the poor old wreck that had been so constantly before their eyes for almost a year, and when they found money like pebbles along the beach, it never struck them that it could have been washed out of those crumbling ribs, whose only value had been that they gave them a rusty spike every now and then.
Jack was wild to go out into the night, and to hunt for money there and then, and it was as much as Tom could do to quiet him and make him lie down and try to get a little sleep. Of course, neither of them caught a wink, and both were stirring at the dawn of day.
They hardly ate a bite of food before they set to work.
By noontide Tom had made a couple of rude shovels, the blades of which were of the plankings of the cutter over their heads, and the handles of which were two straight limbs, cut from the neighboring thicket. It was a long tedious piece of work to make these shovels, for Tom had no toolsto work with but Jack’s knife, and only half of the blade of that was left. Tom labored steadily at the shovels, but Jack was very impatient at the slowness of the work, and was continually urging him to hurry matters. I suppose that he was back and forth from the hut to the wreck a dozen times in the course of the morning.
But at last the shovels were finished. Tom tried to persuade Jack to eat a bite before he went to work, but Jack would have nothing to do with food; he shouldered the two shovels and started away to the sand-spit, leaving Tom to cook and eat his dinner by himself. When Tom went over to the wreck a half an hour later, he found Jack busily at work, and a great hole already scooped out in the sand,—but Jack had not yet found a cent of money.
I do not think that they had any idea of what they were undertaking, and what a tremendous piece of work it was that lay before them. I confess that Tom was as foolish as Jack, in having a notion that all they would have to do would be to scoop away a little sand, and pick up money by the handful; but they found nothing either on that day or the next, or the next, or for a week or more to come. Jack began to be very much discouraged, and said more than once that he was certain that Tom had been mistaken in his notion that the wreck was that of a treasure ship.
Tom himself began to be a little down-hearted, and more than once suspected that he had madea wrong guess. But when he brought to mind that the money was of one mintage, and, from the way in which it lay, that it was plainly washed out of the wreck by the water that had flowed over the sand-spit at the time of the hurricane, he would feel reassured that he was right, though he could not account for the reason why a part of it should have been washed up, while the rest seemed to lie so deeply beneath the surface. So he managed to keep Jack pretty steadily to his work, though, as the days dragged along and nothing came of their labor, it became a great task to do so.
But on the tenth day they made a find. They were just about to give up their work for the evening, when Tom unearthed a small, wooden box. It was about a foot long, six inches wide, and three or four inches deep. It was very rotten, and fell to pieces as Jack tried to pick it up. It was full of money, which tumbled all in a heap as the box crumbled in Jack’s hand. The money must have been in rolls when it was put into the case, for there were scraps of mouldy paper mixed with it, and some of the coins had bits of paper glued to them by the black rust that had gathered upon them.
This was the first money that they found by digging, and Jack nearly went crazy over it. Tom himself was very much excited, but he did not act as absurdly as Jack, who danced, and laughed, and shouted like one possessed. It was their first gleam of good luck, and it was a good thing thatit came when it did, for it was speedily followed by the worst of ill fortune.
That night there came a south-east storm that did great damage. It had been brewing all of the afternoon, but Tom and Jack had not seen it, or, if they had seen it, had thought nothing of it, for heretofore the wash of the surf had never run as far up as the wreck, even in the heaviest weather. But so much of the sand had been carried away that the surf came a great deal higher than it had done before. It was blowing quite heavily when Tom and Jack went over to the sand-spit the next morning, and a part of the wash of the breakers had found its way into the place that they had been digging, so that the sand had caved in here and there. They tried to do all that they could to protect their work, but it was no good, for, by the time that evening had come, the place that they had dug out was half full of sand, and by the next morning it was nearly levelled over, and all of their labor was to be done again. As soon as the storm was over they set to work, and in a week’s time had the sand nearly all dug out. Then came another blow, and the same thing happened as before.
After this they set about the work with more system. They built a breakwater of stakes, between which they wove twigs and grass. This was Tom’s plan, and they found that it kept the sea back completely, for, as I have said, it was only the wash of the breakers that ran over the place that theywere at work. It never filled up again as long as Tom and Jack were engaged upon it.
But all this cost a great deal of time and labor, and I doubt very much if they had not found the box of money whether they would ever have struck a shovel into the sand again after the first storm came upon them; so that it was a lucky thing that they found the box when they did, and that the southeaster did not come a day sooner.
For three or four months they worked as never men worked before. It is strange to think of how men will labor and toil for money, even when money will do them as little good as it did Jack and Tom on this lonely island. It is a wonder that they did not kill themselves with the work and the hardships that they went through during that time. However, the excitement that they were living under kept them up to a great degree.
During all these months they lived upon little else than fish. Now and then they would gather a few mussels or catch a crab or two, but their chief living was fish—broiled fish for breakfast, dinner and supper, until they both grew to loathe the very sight of it. Tom got such a surfeit of them in that time that he could never bear the smell of a frying fish from that day to this.
Upon the first of September they counted over the money that they had unearthed, and they found that they had over eight thousand dollars in all. It was made up of silver coins of all sizes, large and small.
They only had three days more of work on the island, and, as two of those days were blank, they did not add very much to the sum that they had already gathered.
IT was the morning of the 3d of September of the same year,—1814.
Tom and Jack had just finished their breakfast;—it was of broiled fish. Hughy! It makes me shudder even now to think of it, for I do hate the very sight of a fish.
The work of digging at the wreck had settled down to a very jog-trot business by this time. Neither of the men were in a hurry to quit their comfortable seat on the sand and turn to hard work, that had lost all the savor of novelty it had had at first. The first day that they had struck shovel into the sand above the wreck, Jack had started off eagerly, without eating a bite; he was quite willing to eat a meal now,—even a meal of broiled fish—and to take a goodly while to the eating of it also. So they both sat dwadling over their unsavory food, not at all anxious to make a start.
“Well, Jack,” said Tom, at last; “I suppose that we might as well be stirring.”
“I reckon we might,” said Jack, and then he stretched himself, as a first step toward getting up.
At that moment a sound fell upon their ears. Itwas not one to which you would have given a second thought, and yet if it had been a clap of thunder out of a clear sky, it could not have startled the two more than it did.
When they had rebuilt their hut after it had been destroyed by the great hurricane, they had not located in the same spot in which they had lived before. An eddy of the wind had scooped a hollow out of the side of the sand hill, and it was in the side of this cup-shaped hollow that they had digged their house, and had roofed it in with the cutter as they had done before; for they thought that they would be more sheltered in this spot if another hurricane should come upon them. Looking from this hollow in front of them, they could see nothing but a part of the western ocean and the upper end of the sand-spit, whereupon they worked from day to day. It was just back of them, and from the crest or brim of this sandy bowl that the sound came that startled them so greatly.
It was the sound of a man’s voice.
“Ahoy there!”
For a moment Jack and Tom looked at one another without turning around. This minute I can see just how Jack stared at Tom; his mouth agape, and his eyes as big as saucers. But it was only for a moment that they sat looking at one another so amazedly, for the next instant they jumped to their legs and turned around.
A burly red-faced man was standing on the crest of the white sand hill, his figure sharply markedagainst the blue sky behind him. His hands were thrust deeply into his breeches pockets, and he stood with his legs a little apart. He had a short cutty pipe betwixt his teeth;—the bowl was turned topsey-turvey, and there was no light in it. When he saw that Tom and Jack were looking at him, he spoke again, without taking the pipe from out his mouth.
“Are you fellows the first and second mates of theNancy Hazlewood, privateersman?”
Jack nodded his head.
The man turned and beckoned two or three times, and then came slowly and carefully down the steep side of the sand dun, half sliding, half stumbling. The first thing that he said when he came to where they were, was:
“I just tell you what it is, mates; that mess of fish smells mighty good.” Then he asked which of them was the first mate.
“I’m the first mate,” said Jack.
By this time three or four heads rose above the crest of the hill, and a little knot of sailors gathered on the top of the dun; then they came jumping and sliding and stumbling down to where the others were standing.
But all this time Tom was like one in a dream. I think that he must have been dazed by the suddenness of the coming of that for which he had longed so bitterly and so deeply. He tried to realize that they were rescued; that these men were about to take them away; that they were really to leave the island that had been their prison for somany long and weary days, and that in a few weeks at the furthest, he would be in Eastcaster again, and would see Patty, and would be talking with her of all these things. Many a time in the silence of the lonely night, he had pictured their rescue to himself, and in the sleep that followed, he had perhaps dreamed that a boat was lying on the beach below their hut, and then had wakened to the bitterness of its being only a dream. But now that rescue had in truth come to them, he could no more realize it than you or I can realize that we are really to see the other world, some time to come. So he stood leaning against the poor old shattered cutter that had sheltered Jack and him for so long, and as he leaned there he looked about him, wondering dully, whether or not he would not awaken in a few minutes and find this too to be only a dream. He heard the man who had hailed them, telling Jack that he was the first mate of the barqueBaltimore, of Baltimore, and that they were bound for New York from Key West, having run fifty miles out of their course to pick them up at this island. He heard him ask Jack which one of them had set the bladder of porpoise hide adrift, that theBaltimorehad picked up off the Florida coast, and saw that Jack jerked his thumb toward him, and that the mate of theBaltimorewas looking at him, and was saying that it was a d—d clever Yankee trick. He saw the sailors crowding around, looking here and there; peeping and prying into the doorway of the hut, and talkingamongst themselves. “Blast my eyes, Tommy, look at this here shanty!” “Well, I’m cussed if they hain’t got a ship’s boat slung up for a roof!” “Damme! look at his beard and hair; (this in a hoarse whisper) he’s the second mate, Bill;—Granger, you know.”
Then he heard Jack ask the mate of theBaltimorefor a chew of tobacco. He cut off the piece of the plug with his old broken jack-knife, and Tom watched him doing it as though it was a matter of the greatest moment to him. I can recollect that he thought dully how Jack must enjoy his tobacco after having been so long without it.
After a while there was a movement, and he heard Jack calling to him to come along, as they were all going over to the boat, but it was still in the same dazed state that he walked along the beach with the others until they came around the end of the sand hills, saw the bay open before him, and the barque floating like a swan upon the smooth surface of the water. A ship’s boat was lying high and dry on the sand of the beach, and two sailors were sitting in the stern, smoking comfortably and talking together. They tumbled out of the boat and stood looking as the others drew near, and Tom thought what a strange sight Jack and he must be—ragged, tattered, patched, half-naked, with beards reaching to their breasts, and heads uncovered, excepting for the mat of hair that hung as low as their shoulders. He had not thought of their looking strange before this.
So they reached the boat, and Tom stood for a moment looking down into it and at the oars lying along the thwarts within. Then he and Jack and Mr. Winterbury (the first mate) climbed in and the boat was shoved off, grating on the sand as it moved into the water. There was a rattle of oars dropped into the rowlocks, and then the regular “chug! chug!” of the rowing. He looked back and saw the island and the beach and the white sand hills that he knew so well dropping slowly astern. It seemed very strange to be looking at them from the ocean. At last they were close to where the barque was slowly rising and falling upon the heaving of the ground swell that came rolling in around the point of the sandy hook beyond. This is the way in which their rescue came.
As they swept under the lee of the barque Mr. Winterbury stood up in the stern sheets of the boat. There were a row of faces looking down at them from the forecastle, and two or three sailors were standing on the bulwarks, holding on to the shrouds. They, too, were looking down into the boat. Two men were standing near to the break of the poop. One of them was a handsome young fellow of about twenty; the other was a tall, rather loose-jointed man, somewhat round-shouldered, and a little past the prime of life. He had his hands clasped behind him, and he hailed the first mate as soon as the cutter came alongside.
“Did you find them all safe and sound, Mr. Winterbury?”
“Yes, sir; safe and sound.”
Mr. Winterbury went up the side first, and Jack and Tom followed close at his heels. They were met by Captain Williamson as soon as they had stepped upon the deck. He shook hands with them, and immediately asked them to step into the cabin, for he must have seen that it was trying to them to be stared at by all of the ship’s crew. There was a decanter of Madeira and three glasses on the cabin table. Captain Williamson bade Tom and Jack be seated, and then sat down himself. He filled one of the glasses, and then passed the decanter to the others, bidding them to fill likewise, which they did.
It may not be out of place here to give you a description of Captain Williamson. He was one of the skippers of the last century, the like of which we rarely, if ever, see nowadays. He was part owner in the craft that he sailed, and made a good thing of it. He came of an old Annapolis family, and was a courteous, kindly, Christian gentleman, though stiff and formal in his manners. He fancied that he looked like General Washington, and it was a weakness of his to act and carry himself as nearly as he could after the manner of the General, who, by the by, was a distant relative or connection, though by marriage, if I mistake not. Another weakness of his was a fancy that he would have made a great naval captain if he had only had the opportunity.
As it was, he had never smelt fighting powder inall his life; nor was he likely to do so, for, though no coward, he was cautious and careful in the extreme, and would never willingly have entered into action, even with a fighting bum-boat. He always wore a cocked hat, like an admiral, knee-breeches, buckles and pumps, and when he was standing still rested mainly on one foot, with his hands clasped behind him and the knee of the other leg bent, just as General Washington always stands in the pictures that one sees of him.
So he sat now, with one knee crossed over the other, very stiff and straight, just as General Washington might have sat if he had been sitting in the cabin.
“May I ask which of you is the first mate?” said he.
“I’m the first mate, sir,” said Jack.
“Mr. Baldwin, I believe?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Was it you, sir, who conceived the extremely ingenious and clever plan of sending bags or bladders of porpoise hide afloat, with your condition and location inclosed within them?”
“No, sir,” said Jack, “it was my mate here,” and he chucked his thumb toward Tom.
“It was a very clever thought—very clever indeed,” said Captain Williamson, turning to Tom. “How did you get that black substance with which it was covered?”
“We mixed the porpoise blubber with soot,” said Tom.
The captain nodded his head. “Very clever indeed,” said he again, “it was very efficacious, for the bladder was quite covered with the substance when we picked it up—so much so, indeed, that my fingers were thoroughly befouled in the handling of it. And was it you, also, who made the map of the island?”
“Yes, sir,” said Tom again.
Then Captain Williamson nodded his head once more, and said for the third time: “Very clever—very clever, indeed.” Then he told Tom that theBaltimorehad picked up the bladder off the Florida coast. “It was,” said he, “but fifty miles out of my course to come to this island, for I am bound for New York harbor. I recognized the situation of the island from the plan of it found enclosed in the bladder.”
“It was a kind and Christian act on your part,” said Tom. “Very few captains would have run fifty miles out of their course to pick up two poor souls, ’specially while so many British cruisers are about. I and my mate—”
Here he stopped, for a great lump rose in his throat until it seemed to choke him.
“Tut! tut! tut! tut!” said Captain Williamson, holding up his hand deprecatingly; “it was no more than one Christian man ought to do for another. Say no more of that, I beg of you. There are many questions that I wish to ask of you in reference to the loss of theNancy Hazlewood, but I will not trouble you with questions just atthis season. I will beg of you to give such an account, however, after you are refreshed with clean linen and clothes, and what not.”
As Captain Williamson paused for a moment Tom looked at Jack, and saw that he fidgeted restlessly in his chair when the other spoke of theNancy Hazlewood. There was a great deal about her loss that would be very difficult and very bitter to tell.
“In the meantime,” said Captain Williamson, resuming his speech, “you need have no anxiety about anything that you may desire to fetch away from the island with you, for I have sent a boat ashore under my second mate, Mr. Bright. He will see that everything is brought safely away from your hut or cabin. So, as I said, you need have no anxiety on that score.”
At these words Jack and Tom sprung to their feet, for the thought struck them both at once that their money would be found, and that in an hour’s time every man aboard of the ship would not only know that the two castaways had been digging for treasure, but would also know where that treasure had been found. It would be no secret then, but would be known to all, and there was no telling what such knowledge might bring with it. It was a thing that no one but the captain or the chief officers of the ship should be aware of just at the present time.
“Captain Williamson,” cried Jack, “for the love of heaven, don’t let that boat go ashore just yet!Tom, you speak to him, you’re blessed with the gift of talk; speak to him, and tell him about the mon—, about you know what.”
“Yes, captain,” cried Tom, “for heaven’s sake don’t let the boat go ashore till we tell you something first.”
Captain Williamson had also risen to his feet. He seemed to be very much amazed at their words. “Why not? Why shouldn’t the boat go ashore?” said he. “What does all this mean?”
“Has the boat left the ship yet, captain?” said Tom.
“Yes; the boat has left the ship; but what does all this mean, I say?”
“Then, stop it—call it back!” cried Tom.
Jack was walking up and down, patting his clenched fist in his excitement. “I’ll tell you what it means,” he blurted out; “it means that there’s nigh to nine thousand dollars in silver money in that hut, and that the crew of the boat mustn’t find it there.”
“Nine thousand dollars!” repeated Captain Williamson; and then he stopped and stood glaring at the two men as though he doubted he had heard aright.
“Yes,” said Jack, thumping his fist down on the table, “nine thousand dollars, and if you let that boat’s crew find it, and find where it came from, you’ll be chucking a fortune from your own hands into their pockets. For heaven’s sake, stop the boat—call it back!”
Then Captain Williamson stepped quickly to the door and flung it open. “Mr. Winterbury!” cried he, sharply.
“Aye, aye, sir!”
“Call the cutter back!”
“Call the—”
“Call the cutter back!”
“Aye, aye, sir!”
There was a pause, and then Tom and Jack heard the bellow of the mate’s voice in the trumpet:
“Cutter ahoy-y-y-y!”
Captain Williamson stood with his head out of the cabin door, and presently they heard him ask:
“Do they hear you, sir?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then signal them back.”
“Aye, aye, sir!”
Then Captain Williamson drew in his head, shutting the door carefully, and resumed his seat. He passed his hand over his face, and crossed his knees, and then put on his Washingtonian air again. I think that he was half ashamed of the excitement that had driven him out of it a moment before.
“Now, Mr. Granger,” said he, “since Mr. Baldwin has called upon you to be the spokesman, will you tell me what all this means?”
“Yes, sir; I will,” said Tom. “Of course, you will have to know everything, after what has passed; but I should have told you of it anyhow, for I put much trust in your honor.”
“You are perfectly right to do so,” said Captain Williamson. “Sit down, if you please.”
Then the two sat down again, and Tom began his story. Captain Williamson did not say a word to interrupt him, but every now and then he looked sharply from Tom to Jack, and from Jack back again to Tom. He sat with his elbows on the arms of his chair, and the tips of his fingers just touching each other; but he did not move a muscle, excepting as he turned his head when he looked first at one, and then at the other.
At last Tom had made an end of the story. Captain Williamson did not move for a second or two, but he sat just as he had been doing all along. Then he drew a deep breath, and arose from his chair. He took a turn or two up and down the cabin; then he stopped suddenly in front of Tom and Jack.
“This is an extraordinary—a most extraordinary tale,” said he. “I never heard the like in all my life. It’s like a tale in a romance, and I can scarcely believe that I have heard aright. That you should find a treasure on this—”
Here he stopped abruptly and looked sharply from one to the other. “Surely, there can be nothing false and underhand in all this,” he said.
“I suppose the story does sound strange to you,” said Tom. “I reckon that it’s because we’re so used to it that it don’t seem as though it ought to be strange. It’s the truth, though, captain. There wouldn’t be any use in our telling you a lie, for you can easily prove the truth of it for yourself.”
“True, true,” said he, and then he began walking up and down the cabin again. “What do you intend to do about the matter now?” said he, stopping for a moment, and turning to the others.
Tom and Jack looked at one another.
“I’ll leave the whole thing to you, Tom,” said Jack. “It was you who found the money—at least, it was you that found out where it was. I suppose it ought all to belong to you, by rights.”
“That’s all nonsense, Jack,” said Tom. “It was you who found it first; but even if you hadn’t, we’re mates, and it’s share and share alike between us.”
“Well, I reckon that’s no more than fair,” said Jack, “but it don’t matter in this case; I’ll leave the whole thing to you.”
Tom sat lost in thought for a few moments. At last he spoke: “I’d make this proposal,” said he; “that we put the whole thing in the hands of Captain Williamson, leaving him to do what he thinks best in the matter, only having him guarantee to share all gains that shall come from it with us. It seems to me that we certainly owe as much as this to him, and that it’s the least that we can do. What do you think, Jack?”
Jack hesitated for a moment. “Well,” said he, “I suppose that it’s no more than what’s right.”
“I think not,” said Tom. “What do you say about it, captain?”
“It’s for you to say,” said Captain Williamson. “Of course, I’ll be glad to go into the matter withyou, but I wish you to understand that I don’t want you to feel that any money is due me because I ran a few miles out of my course to pick you up. That was no more than one man could be expected to do for another. If I come into this, it must be on purely business grounds, and not as a gift of gratitude from you.”
“Very well,” said Tom. “What do you think would be fair terms between us?”
“If you have no objections, I would like to talk with my first mate about it,” said Captain Williamson.
Jack and Tom looked at one another again.
“Do you think that there’s any special need of his knowing about it?” said Jack. “It seems to me that we’re taking in a good many. It’s all right that you should share with us, seeing that you’ve treated us in such a handsome manner. I acknowledge that very few captains would have sailed out of their course in times of war for the sake of picking up a couple of poor, shipwrecked devils, with nothing to be gained by it, and, apart from the business part of it, I think likely that we owe that much to you; but I don’t see why the mate should be taken in, too.”
“I don’t know that he will expect to be ‘taken in,’” said Captain Williamson, somewhat coldly, “but I think that you’ll find his advice in the matter will be of help to you. You may rely upon it that the secret will be as safe with him as it will be with me.”
“All right,” said Jack; “if Tom don’t care, I don’t, either.”
So Mr. Winterbury was called into the cabin, and Tom told the story of the finding of the treasure all over again.
“What do you think of it, Mr. Winterbury?” said Captain Williamson, when Tom had ended.
“I think it’s the most extraordinary yarn that ever I heard in all my life.”
“Exactly my thought. And now, if Mr. Baldwin and Mr. Granger will excuse us for a moment or two, I would like to have a few words with you outside.” Then they went out, and Jack and Tom were left alone.
“It seems to me that you did rather too much, Tom,” said Jack.
“I think it was as little as we could do,” said Tom. “They’ve sailed fifty miles out of their course to pick us up, without expecting so much as a red cent for it, so I think it was as little as we could do.”
“Oh, all right; I’m not finding fault,” said Jack. “I don’t mean to find any fault at all; I was only giving you my notion about it. I’m satisfied.”
But it was very plain, from the way in which he spoke, that he wasnotsatisfied.
In a little while Captain Williamson and Mr. Winterbury came into the cabin again. Then the captain asked a number of questions about the wreck—how much of it they had already uncovered, etc., etc.
“We’ve uncovered a little less than one quarter of it, I should judge,” said Tom, looking to Jack for confirmation.
Jack nodded his head.
Then Captain Williamson told them what his idea was about it. That he did not think that the wreck was that of a treasure ship, as they had not found money enough in it for that; that he had no doubt that the vessel had been carrying newly-minted money to some one of the Spanish provinces when she had been cast on the beach—probably in a south-easterly gale. From what they had already found, he thought that there might have been from forty to fifty thousand dollars in her all together, and that there might be from thirty to forty thousand dollars yet left under the sand. He said that he would undertake to find the rest of the money, and that he would send or take out a ship stocked with provisions for that purpose, the expense of which he would bear himself. That all wages and expenses above that should be paid out of the money that they should find, and that the net gain should be shared equally between them, each taking a third. “Or,” said he, in conclusion, “I will buy either or both of your interests out, accepting all the risks myself. I will give you each six thousand dollars for your share in the venture, for which I offer a note payable at ninety days, with safe indorsement.” He then said that he would give them a week to think over the offer he had made, and would be glad to hear anything that they might have to propose.
I will say here, that at the end of a week they had made up their minds to run their chances of what might be found, and that it paid them to do so.
A little later in the morning Captain Williamson and Mr. Winterbury and Jack and Tom went ashore in the captain’s gig. They left the gig and the crew of it a little distance up the beach, while they four walked down to the hut, Tom and Jack carrying a small sea-chest between them, in which to store the money that was hidden under a pile of brush-wood in the cabin. Then they went out on the sand-spit to inspect the wreck, and Captain Williamson renewed the offer that he had made in the cabin of theBaltimore, and said again that they might take a week to think it over.
Then they tore down the breakwater that Tom and Jack had built, so that the sea might make in during the next storm, and so hide the work that they had done. After this they went back to the gig, and Captain Williamson sent four of the men to the hut for the chest of money.
So, at last, their life upon the island came to an end.
They had a safe and quick journey home, entering Sandy Hook on the 20th of the month. They were quarantined for a couple of days through some delay, and landed in New York on the 23d.
During the voyage home, Jack gave Captain Williamson an account of the loss of theHazlewood. The captain looked very serious over it; he did not say anything, but he shook his head. Heevidently thought that it was a very shady piece of business.
The day after they landed in New York, Jack and Tom took stage to Philadelphia, which they reached a little after noon of the 26th.
You all know what followed. The Board of Trade appointed a committee to inquire into the circumstances of the loss of the shipNancy Hazlewood. Tom did not write a letter home, because he expected that every day would be his last in town; but the investigation dragged along until more than a week had been consumed by the committee.
Both Tom and Jack were blamed, because that they had come off with their lives, while the captain and most of the crew had gone down in the ship. Mr. Blakie, of the firm of Blakie & Howard, said some particularly bitter and cutting things, which might have stung Tom very sharply if he had not felt that, by rights, there was not much blame resting upon him.
Mr. Blakie’s words were meant as much for him as they were for Jack, for it was not known that Tom had been taken off the vessel against his will. Jack did not breathe a word of this, and Tom was too proud to seem to want to slip from under the blame, and leave Jack to bear it all. Jack did not say in so many words that Tom had joined him in deserting the ship in the cutter, but what he did say would have led any reasonable man to infer as much. It is quite natural that a man should disliketo carry all of a load of blame on his own shoulders, and there is a great satisfaction in knowing that others share the burden; at the same time, it would have been a good thing for Tom, if Jack had spoken out and told the whole truth, for, as it turned out, it weighed in the balance against him when every scruple told.
But at last the committee dismissed Tom, and he was free to go; little he cared then of their favorable or unfavorable opinion, for the time had come when he might go home.
There was just time to catch the morning stage for Eastcaster, and in half an hour he was rumbling out of Philadelphia, mounted, pipe in mouth, on the outside of theUnionstage, with his boxes and bundles safely stowed away in the boot.