CHAPTER XXIV.
WHAT WAS IN THE TREASURE HOUSE.
Now, the first thing was for me to get into the Etoyle, and bring a fair provision of food and drink, and then, I thought, I would sink her, or, at least, would get her ready for sinking, so that she, at any rate, should never go on any more evil cruises. This was, however, to be done later.
I went aboard her, therefore, directly I had made my meal, and brought off from her some Boucan, about ten pounds; some dried neats', or deer, tongues, a good amount of powdered chocolate, and some boxes of sweetmeats--the villains seeming to have a dainty taste!--and also I brought away some bottles of Calcavella, a Portygee sweet wine, and a small barrel of rum. And also did I take away some cakes of bread, now very hard and stale, but which, by damping with fresh water and then placing in the sun, became once more eatable. Likewise I provided myself with some of their powder and bullets, not knowing what use I might yet have for such things on the island, or when I was away to sea again.
This Etoyle was indeed a strangely laden bark, full of the most varied things the minds of men could well conceive, and had it been possible--which 'twas not, being without assistance--I would have had her taken to one of the West Indy Isles, and her contents there sold. She had in her, to wit, elephants' teeth and tusks, and some gold dust--though not much of any, neither--which spoke to me clearly of some robbings on the Guinea Coast, also some fine English cloths, silk druggets and hollands, many packs of whole suits of clothes for wearing; some mantuas, a box of lace, another of ribands (again I thought of the mysterious Barbara!), pieces of fine silk duroys and some Norwich stuffs, as well as vast masses of tobacco. Indeed, I thought, this Snow might have visited half the world for her cargo--had I not very well known, or guessed, that 'twas all stolen out of various other ships.
It took me some time shifting all that was necessary for my forthcoming voyage--leaving, you may be sure, much behind in the Etoyle--and then ladening myself with some provisions for the hut, I prepared to depart back to it.
Yet now more counsel came to me. Supposing, thinks I, that while I am away at the hut, Martin with his sloop, or some similar villains, should come into the river! Why! they would at once see all! The Etoyle they would perceive a battered craft--and doubtless they knew her very well--and they would see the strange galliot. This would not do, therefore I must devise some means if I could, not only to remove all marks of our fray, but, if it might be so, to prevent anyone entering the river at all. Then, at last, I decided what I would do.
First of all I took the galliot down out of the river to the sea, and, with a light sail up, I got her to a little cove a third of a league away from the mouth, in which I moored her; and this cove had such projecting spurs that none passing outside would be very like to see her. Indeed, one would have to pass close by the opening of it to do so at all. Then, getting to the boat again, I rowed me back to the river. Next I brought down the Snow to the mouth, moored her fast across it, it being not more than forty to fifty yards at the opening and about fifteen fathoms deep, as I did plumb, and going below I bored a many holes in her sides and bottom so that she began to fill at once, and in half an hour I, who was a-watching from my boat, saw her settling down so that, at last, there was no more of her above water, her masts, as I have writ, being shot away.
"Now," says I, "if Martin and his sloop come in and draw much water, 'tis almost a certainty that they shall go foul of some part of the fabric, which may do me a very good turn--if not, then must I take my chance against them," with which I again prepared for the hut.
That day I did very little work, though so great was my desire to dig into and find the contents of the "treasure house" that I could scarce take my necessary rest. Yet I mastered myself so much that I forced myself to sleep, determining to work at night when it was cool. So I lay me down on the east side of the place this time, the sun having by now gotten to the west, and slept well, awaking not until night was at hand.
Now, amidst all my precautions, 'twas strange to think I had forgotten one thing. I had made no provision for any light at night. The lamp knocked over by the dying pirate was still there where it had fallen, 'tis true, but the oil was all spilled and I could find no other, search as I might. Yet I felt convinced there must be oil somewhere, if I could but discover it. 'Twas not to be conceived that Alderly and the diver had this lamp with them when they plunged into the river to escape from the Etoyle; therefore, if I sought, surely I should find.
Yet how to seek! The tropic darkness came on with swiftness, in a few minutes the hut was as black as a pocket; and the moon would not rise for some hours yet! Well! there was no hope for it, I reflected; this night at least must be wasted, and so I made up my mind to pass it as best I might. Though my reflections and memories of the previous night's scene, of Alderly's drunken howls, singings, and toasts, of the spectre his maddened brain had conjured up, and of his horrid death, helped me not at all. I saw him over and over again sitting at the table, filling the cans with liquor for his imaginary guests, talking to Barbara, shivering at the supposed ghost of Winstanley, fighting with me--dying. And at last I got the creeps, I started at any twig that snapped outside or the cry of a night bird, and, springing up, I went forth and plunged into the thickness, where I walked about till daybreak. And in that walk I explored the whole of Coffin Island very nigh, and saw under the moon, when she had risen, that beyond the river there was no other entrance to it. Nearly all around elsewhere were craggy cliffs to make landing almost impossible, saving only one strip of beach.
Away on Tortola and Negada I saw once or twice lights burning, and wondered what the inhabitants of those isles thought of their precious neighbours in this one--I wondered, too, if they knew or dreamed of what Coffin Island contained! And thus the night passed away, the dayspring came, and I went back to the "treasure house."
"Was it to prove such to me?" I asked myself as I made a meal off some of the provisions I had brought along with me. "Was it to prove such?"
The question was soon answered, as you, my unknown heir, shall now see.
The floor of the hut was a mass of filth that had not been disturbed for some time, and to this had been added now the spilled liquor from the tub that Alderly had flung over in his mad convulsions, as well as some of his blood where he had fallen last. This, therefore, with the previous dirt, I set to clear away with the spade, after I had removed the overturned table, the stool, and other things. And the task was not long. Ere I had been cleaning the floor ten minutes, I came upon an iron ring--set into a trap-door, immediately under where Alderly's chair had been placed. It was not--I mean the trap-door--very far below the surface, not indeed more than three inches, and, even as I tugged and tugged at it, I could not but ponder over the little pains taken to conceal such a hiding place. And I did wonder if, when the villain was away on some of his cruises, he had not many a fear as to whether his store was not being rifled.
However, this was no time for such wonderments and speculations, actions were now all, and so again I heaved at the door. It would not lift, however, for all my pullings, so I cleared away still more earth, doing so especially round where it fitted into a frame, and at last prised it right up with the mattock. And you may be sure with what eagerness I gazed into the opening.
First of all I saw that as yet I had not reached the treasure, for although the trap was no larger than to admit a man's body, there were still below it some rude steps down into the earth, which opened up at the bottom of them into what seemed to be a passage. And when I got down to the bottom of those steps, I saw very well that there was a passage, or, indeed, a room cut into the earth; a place about six feet long and five feet deep, being more like a little cabin than aught else.
And now I knew that I had got to what I sought; the treasure was here.
There stood on the floor, and piled up one above the other, four chests, or coffers, the very workmanship of which told me they must be old. Certainly, they had not been made in these days or anywheres near them. They seemed to be of oak full of little wormholes, much carved and designed, and with inscriptions on them in, I think, Latin, of which I understood not one word. Moreover, they had great solid locks to them as well as padlocks, but these had long since been burst open, the reason whereof 'twas not very hard to seek out. I guessed that those who took them from their rightful owners could not perhaps find the keys, and so blew them or forced them thus open.
I lifted the lid of the nearest and peered in, and there the first object to meet my eyes was a grinning skull, the bone severed right across the head as though with a lusty sword cut.
"Well!" thinks I to myself, as I looked on this poor remnant of mortality, "well! you are indeed a strange warden of what may be herein. Yet, p'raps not so strange either if all accounts of piratical doings be true." For when I was but a lad in Oliver's service, and a-chasing the rovers not so very far from this spot where I now was, 'twas always said that they would slay a man and bury him over their hidden treasure, so that he or his ghost should frighten away others who would meddle with it. And so it might have been here, for, thinks I, "perhaps as I go on I shall find other parts of a dead man in the other chests."
Now, although 'twas daylight above, 'twas almost dark in this vault or passage, small as it was, so that I shifted the first coffer nearer to the bottom of the steps, so as to get a full light upon it from above, and then I went on with my hunt, putting the death's head away for a while. Beneath him, as he had lain atop, was what I took to be a piece of yellow canvas, as so it was, though on looking closer I saw that either dyed into it, or cunningly interwoven, were some flowers like our irises, and some words all over it faint with age, of which I could distinguish but the letters "ance" and "smes." Then, when I lifted this up, I found that the coffer had little enough else in it but a handful or so of gold coins lying about amongst some old things, such as a pair of gloves with great steel beads on the backs and tops of the fingers, some silk cloths, a great parchment in Latin--which I laid aside--and such like. The gold coins were, however, such as I did never see before, having on them a head of an old man with a great brimmed hat, and stamped on them, Charles X., Roi de France,[[7]] 1589. And this set me a-thinking. These coins bore the same date as the pistols, inscribed "Marquis de Pontvismes," and the indistinct words on the canvas cloth of "ance" and "smes" were the endings of the words France and Pontvismes. What had I lighted on here? I turned it over and over in my head all that day, and many a one after that, but it was very long ere I arrived at any decision.
There were twenty-seven of these coins and nothing more of any worth within that strong box, so I hoisted it away and began upon a second. And in this I found I had indeed come upon a horde. It was full of sacks or bags of coin of all sorts. Sacks with their mouths gaping open wide, bags tied up, and also many loose coins all about. And they were of all countries and dates, there being amongst them Spanish pieces of eight, Portyguese crusadoes, English crowns, and many more French coins, as well as hundreds of gold pieces of our kings and queens, away back to Queen Elizabeth. Later that day I counted of these pieces up, and made them come to over two thousand pounds.
Then next, in the others, I did find as follows, on the list I enclose; all of which I do reckon, one way with another, bringeth the gross up to what I have said, namely, fifty thousand guineas. Here is that list.
Note.--Unfortunately it was not here. Reginald turned all the sheets over and over again, but could not find it. Perhaps by one of those pieces of carelessness which seemed to have pervaded both Nicholas's and Mr. Wargrave's system, it had been originally mislaid. But, however that might be, it was not at this period that the former's descendant was to learn all the items which went to make up the fifty thousand guineas.--J. B.-B.