The last buccaneer

Now, from Caratasca Cays to the island of Barbadoes is near eight hundred sea-miles; say a week’s voyage with a fair wind; and in about that time we entered the muddy water that for several leagues surrounds the island of Barbadoes. That evening Admiral Murch signalled to us to lay-to, since he would not make the harbour in the dark. Night came at a stride, and ere the other two ships had their riding-lights displayed Pomfrett had set sail, had gone about, and the Modesty ship was heading back again for Caratasca.

All the way we had been discussing plans, but where was the use of plans when we could see no further than the ship’s bolt-sprit? Had we slipped away before, Murch would have chased us; now that he lay in sight of harbour, he would very likely let us go, and say no more about it. Pomfrett was going to keep faith with Dawkins after all; his owners must take their chance; and as to the third obligation to which he stood committed, that must wait likewise. The little blind boy with the bow and arrows must wait his turn; an exercise, after all, to which he should be well accustomed. Poor Morgan Leroux must even suffer; but I’ll wager that her sufferings were lighter than her lover’s. During the voyage to Barbadoes he would spend hours beside the taffrail staring at the Blessed Endeavour, where she leaned and rose and dipped, a cable’s length to starboard; and if he caught but a glimpse of Morgan, and a wave of her kerchief, I suppose he thought himself lucky. Now, as he held the wheel himself, his face was set like a death’s head, dim in the gleaming dark; and when the boatswain came aft, to enquire delicately, as a gentleman of fortune should, the meaning of this right-about-face, Pomfrett struck the man on the mouth, consigning him to perdition. Our friend went grumbling to the waist; and thereafter we had much ado to stay the men from breaking into open mutiny. A gay voyage we had of it; but, what with fair words and hard blows, we made Caratasca Cays at last, and dropped anchor in the great lagoon once more. Never were two mariners gladder to see the beach; yet there at the water’s edge, huddled about the camp-fire, was the fount and origin of all our troubles. Not sixty men, by what we could make out from the deck; perhaps twenty, or less; but there was Dawkins, whom no disaster seemed to quell. We saw him standing apart, and heard him roaring orders, while the men ran hither and thither, apparently putting themselves in a posture of defence; and the brown Indians came out upon the top of the beach, and stood looking on, in the shadow of the forest. We had a boat lowered, and rowed ashore with a white shirt hoisted on an oar, in case these desperate gentlemen should think fit to fire on their best friends. Dawkins suffered us to land in silence; then he broke out in a voice that scared the sea-birds, brandishing a great pistol.

“What now, Mr Pomfrett? Where’s Mr Murch? Lying-to round the point, I reckon. I might ’a’ known it from the first, but I believed in you, God curse me for a fool. Where’s Murch, I say?”

“I don’t know,” says Pomfrett, with great composure. “I left him off Barbadoes. I thought you’d want the ship, captain.”

Dawkins dropped his pistol hand and glowered at him, shaking his head. “You’re right there, shipmate,” he growled. “We do want a ship—a little. Ah, but I ain’t satisfied yet, Mr Supercargo, not by a long reckoning. Nor yet these here poor gentlemen o’ fortune—what’s left of ’em—they ain’t satisfied, if I don’t mistake.”

They were not, to judge by their furious looks and questions, as they crowded about us; and Pomfrett there and then called a council. He had taken his resolution; they should sail to England if they chose to come aboard; or—in Mistress Morgan’s phrase—they could stay where they were and be damned. This was no occasion, you see, for circumlocution; everyone spoke their mind roundly, except Mr Dawkins, who held an unaccountable silence. As for gratitude to us for having rescued them, these gentlemen, whatever they felt, were careful to conceal any spark of that uncomfortable emotion.

“You talk very big, Mr Supercargo,” said one. “What! Go to England and rot in the streets, after all what we’ve done? A pleasant thing, to be sure! A proper way to talk to gentlemen of fortune! Just cast your eye round you. Now where would you be if we up and took the blessed ship, what belongs to us as much as you, I reckon?” And the observation was much applauded.

“Just cast your eye over there,” returned Pomfrett, jerking his thumb to where the little Modesty ship sat like a butterfly on the water, “and you’ll see a couple of guns trained on you.” They looked, and, sure enough, there was the red glimmer of the lighted matches, as we had taken care there should be. “Sit still, shipmates,” says Pomfrett. “My gunner isn’t a patient man; and if any of you was to give way to his feelings, there might be an accident.”

Pomfrett was master of the situation for the time; he had but to lift his hand, and a couple of rounds of grape would be whistling about the ears of the unfortunate pirates. So he gained himself a hearing; and when he set before them the posture of affairs, and told them he had sacrificed all to keep faith with Captain Dawkins, they believed him. Landsmen would still have suspected the agent of some secret duplicity; but sailors are a folk both cunning and simple; and they will accept plain dealing with the confidence of children. Pomfrett dictated his terms, implacable as a slaver captain: it was England or the beach; and, since no better might be, they sulkily elected for England. After all, every man had his little gleanings out of Cartagena, though Murch had reaped the harvest; and we might pick up a ship or two on the voyage. Dawkins gave his vote with the others; for, in all questions of policy, save the questions of chasing and fighting, the captain ranks with the rest of the council. He made no remark at the time, but while the men were preparing to embark he drew Pomfrett aside.

“Mr Pomfrett,” says he, “you’ve dealt fair by me—no man couldn’t deal fairer—and I’ll deal fair by you, so help me God! Now, to show you,” Dawkins screwed up an eye, with his head on one side. “You remember that little business of the glass bottle, maybe?”

“An old trick; lucky for you, ’twas new to me,” says the agent, shortly. He did not enjoy these reminiscences.

“An old trick, was it? Why, now, I reckon Murch put you up to that—eh?” returned Dawkins, with a cunning leer. “He don’t believe in no messages in no glass bottles from no Captains de Graaf and Captains Grammont—not he. Eh?”

“Not very likely, Mr Dawkins.”

“Not very likely, as you say, shipmate. No, not likely. Jevon Murch would never be bammed by a simple little dodge like that, would he? So he don’t believe in it?”

“No, he don’t,” answered Pomfrett, wondering what the old rogue might mean by this persistency.

“Why, then, if he don’t—and I reckon he don’t—that’s a good thing for you and me, shipmate,” Dawkins went on, with great deliberation. “And why, says you? Why is this same old Dawkins, this poor old broken-down forsaken buccaneer on his beam-ends, a-talking like this here? That’s what you’re a-thinking, shipmate, at this blessed minute. Has he took leave of his senses, owing to hunger and disapp’intment, and the blessed sun, or what not, you’re asking of yourself.” Dawkins paused in this singular adjuration, his little eyes glowing under his penthouse brows, took a step forward, laid his hand on Pomfrett’s breast, and spoke low. “It’s true,” says he. “The bottle’s true. So far as I know, mind ye, that is. So far as I know, and I’ll swear it on the Book. I didn’t find that there same bottle, nor that message, mind ye, but I found another bottle and another message, and then I lost ’em ashore in a island port. Drunk, I reckon. But not before I’d a-learned the writing by heart. Gamaliel wrote it out from what I rec’lected, so he did, and Gamaliel, he supplied the bottle. And Gamaliel, he thought it was all a bam. But,” said Mr Dawkins, with indescribable emphasis, “it ain’t!”

He fell back a step, and Pomfrett stood regarding him with amazement.

“Now, by your leave, commander, we’ll lay that pretty little ship o’ yours for Catoche Bay on the coast of Yucatan—all as we was, commander, all as we was at the start, and on the way home, too,” Dawkins ended.

And so we did. But the ship had to be provisioned for the long voyage to England; and, taking advantage of the safe anchorage and the traffic of the friendly Indians, we spent a week in Caratasca Lagoon, getting wood, water, and victuals. After all, there was no hurry. Murch had sailed for England by this time, in all likelihood; his course lay north and east of the islands, while ours lay west and north of them; and we might consider ourselves secure from Murch, who, moreover, was doubtless glad to be rid of us. But, with him went Morgan Leroux; and although the agent, in reward of his fidelity, saw a chance of retrieving a great part of his owners’ losses, he went about heavy-eyed and silent. He was never quiet, working doggedly all day at this and that; nor did he sleep much. He would walk about the camp, along the shore and back again, or, if he were on shipboard, up and down the deck at night; then he would sit down where he was and fall asleep for a little while; and then he would wake again, and again take to his restless wandering. But when we were fairly at sea his melancholy lightened a little, and when we dropped anchor in Catoche Bay, on a fine night of moonlight, he nearly forgot his woes. The glimmering surf ran about us in a half-circle, thundering upon a zone of silver beach; on either hand rose tall cliffs, all black and silver in the moonlight, and beyond, the familiar dark barrier of forest, rising upon dim hills. Here, then, was the haven we had come so far to find. On one side of the bay the forest was cleft in a black notch; a few pines straggled thence upon the beach, bordering a gleam of running water. “At a point on nothe mainland Yucatan two leagues due south from the hed of Catoche Bay, having the red rocke where the stream flows out in line with the extreemest projection of cliffe on west horn of bay.” Dawkins had the marks by heart, as he had said. Now, the crew had been told nothing of the matter; no one aboard knew of the treasure save Dawkins and Pomfrett and I; so that, if by any evil chance we found ourselves deceived, there would be the less discontent.

We three, then, had a boat ashore at dawn, with a cargo of empty water-barrels, which were to be filled. This made the ostensible object of our landing. There were the marks, sure enough,—a square lump of red, glistening rock standing alone on the stony beach; and, aligning the rock with the extreme point of the west horn of the bay, we took bearings, and found the line to run nearly due south. Leaving the men to fill the barrels, the three explorers struck through the forest. Dawkins trotted forward like a hound on the trail, panting and pounding, his big face shining with sweat, a humming cloud of flies hovering about him and clustering unheeded in patches upon his skin. There was a curious fixed purpose in his face; he kept glancing at us, where we ran on either side of him, with little, quick, ugly glances; and I could not but remember that, were we out of the way, the whole of the prize would fall to Mr Dawkins. He carried a brace of pistols and a sword; but so did we, though it’s true we were no great hands at the use of these weapons. We had travelled thus, with scarce a word spoken, for about a couple of leagues, when the little river, running in a deep gorge, curved to meet us; and there we were, in a grove of acajou trees, as the message had described.

“‘The felled tree,’” quoted Dawkins, “‘bridging the stream between two groves of acajou trees.’” And there it was; we could see a piece of the trunk, as we hurried forward through the trees. I’ll not deny that, in the few moments during which we traversed the grove, the agent, and I suppose myself, betrayed as much excitement as Dawkins. This elusive hoard of silver, this will-o’-the-wisp treasure, for which we had come so far and suffered so much—did it lie under our hand at last? The next moment we pulled up short, as though struck by a bullet, and stood staring and dismayed.