CHAPTER XXIX.
DRAWING NEAR.
"The Virgin Isles," exclaimed one of these acquaintances as he spat on the ground after swallowing his cocktail at a gulp, "the Virgin Isles! Why, darn the Virgin Isles! What can you do there, young fellow, 'cept go fishing? That is, unless you are a Dane or else a Dutchman "--by which he meant a German--"then you might trade a bit."
But here Mr. Juby, who didn't quite approve of his new client being called "young fellow," explained that he was a gentleman who had neither come to settle nor travel, but only to see the place generally. Also, he informed him, as if the whole thing was settled--which it wasn't--that Mr. Crafer had hired the late Sir Barnaby Briggs's yacht from him and was going to make some tours in it.
"Oh!" said the other, scraping the frozen sugar off the rim of his empty glass as he spoke, and sucking it off his finger--"Oh! if that's all, he's welcome enough to go to the Virgin Isles if he wants to. I thought he wanted to shove some dollars into coco-growing or Liberian coffee. A tourist, eh?"
"That's all," said Reginald, "only a tourist."
"Well! there's good enough sailing round the Virgin Isles or any others in these parts, if you want to sail; but I thought Mr. Juby said you were a sailor. Now, if you are, what do you want to go sailin' about for? Isn't dry land good enough for a sailor off duty?"
"Do you know the Virgin Islands?" asked Reginald, not caring to notice the man's cantankerous disposition.
"Know 'em! I guess I do know 'em! all the lot. And not one worth a red. Which do you particular want to see?"
"All of them," replied Reginald. "Perhaps Tortola in particular."
"Tortola! the rottenest of the lot, except, perhaps, Anegada. Or, p'raps I'd best say Coffin Island. That is about the--there! well!----I'll be----"
"Coffin Island!" exclaimed Reginald, now very wary. "That's a sweet name! What sort of a place is that?"
"Kinder place fit to go and die in, to just roll yourself up in and kick. Kind of a dog's hole, covered with palm trees, gros-gros, moriches and all, Spanish baggonets and sich like. A place as is all yellow and voylet and pink and crimson with flowers, and smells like a gal's boodwar," (this was an awful mouthful for him, but he got it out safely), "though I don't know much about gals' boodwars neither. My daughters ain't got none."
"It must be lovely," Reginald said quietly.
"Love--ly!" the man echoed. "Love--ly! Bah! there ain't five pounds' trade in it a year. The oranges and guavas ain't worth fetching when you can get 'em in the other places without half the trouble, nor more ain't the nutmegs. Likewise, it's chock-a-block full of tarantula spiders and centipides."
"In such a case I suppose it is uninhabited," Reginald hazarded.
"Well, no it ain't, not altogether," the other replied. "Leastways, that's to say partly. There's a fisher fellow lives there when he ain't nowheres else, and he's got a son and a darter. They've been a living there for over a cent'ry, I've heard tell."
"What!" exclaimed Reginald and Juby together while others round who had been listening to the discourse burst out laughing.
"For over a cent'ry and more," the man went on, "this fellow Bridges' family have been living there----"
"Only," chimed in another man, "that ain't the name. It ain't Bridges at all. It's Aldridge."
"No," said still a third, "it isn't Aldridge neither, though something like it."
"Are you telling the story or am I?" exclaimed the first. "And darn the name! What do names matter?" Here he was appeased by the thoughtfulness of Reginald, who suggested some more cocktails round, after which he went on--
"More than a cent'ry, I've heard they've been there. You see, this family is a bit wrong in their heads, and they've got into those heads the idea that somewhere in that darned Coffin Island there's a mort of treasure buried----"
Reginald was sipping his cocktail as the man arrived at this point, and his teeth clicked involuntarily against the glass as the latter uttered the last words; but, beyond this, he did not betray himself Yet it seemed to him that his heart beat quicker than before. "And, therefore, if it's to be found," the man continued, "they mean to find it. Yet no one as I ever heard of, or knew, believes it's there. If it was to be got, they'd have got it before. They do say they've dug up half the island looking for it. But there, I don't know, I've never been ashore in Coffin Island myself."
"But," said Reginald, "you said just now that the man only lived there when he did not live somewhere else. Does he leave his island sometimes, then?"
"He does and so does the son. You see, mister, up that way the people are sailors--like yourself!--just because they can't be much else. And good sailors they are, too, as well as fishermen, so when they've got no turtle nor fish to take, as happens in some times of the year, they go off as sailors in any ship in these parts as wants hands. Now, some of 'em goes down Aspinwall and Colon way--that there once-supposed-to-be-going-to-be-made Panama Canal took a lot of men down there--and some goes to the other Islands, even up to Jamaiky and so on. Well, the old man and his son can't always just live on their stock-rearing and fishing and turtle-catching, and so off they goes too, to get a few more dollars to buy a cask of rum or something they want."
"But the daughter; she cannot go as a sailor too!"
"Oh, no! But she can stop at home and look after the shop. And they do say that she's quite able to do it. She's a caution, I've heard."
This was all the man knew, and, under the influence of the cocktails, he would have been very willing to go on telling more, had he had any further information. And, indeed, considering the distance of Antigua from Coffin Island, it was extraordinary that he should have been able to tell so much. Or, rather, it would have been extraordinary, were it not for the amount of intercourse and communication that takes place between all the numerous islands in the Antilles, and the gossip that is carried backwards and forwards, and is for ever floating about among the sparse population of these, now, much-neglected places.
By night Reginald had changed his plans; instead of going on to Tortola in the Tyne, he had decided to hire Sir Barnaby Briggs's yacht, the Pompeia, from Mr. Juby, and to finish his journey in her. To him it seemed the wisest thing he could do. He would attract less attention at Tortola as a man cruising about for a holiday in the region; and, by living on board, he would be exposed to little questioning. Moreover, so good a sailor as he wanted no assistance in managing such a craft as this; in calm weather he could go about where he liked, and in bad weather shelter could be run for and reached in almost half an hour among the continuous chain of islands hereabouts. And, finally, he could work his way up to Coffin Island, take some observations of the strange family dwelling thereon, and see if the Keys looked as if they too had been submitted to the searching process.
It was a tough job, however, to bring the astute Juby to terms, even over so trifling a thing as hiring the Pompeia. At first he would hardly name the sum he wanted, and then, when that was arranged at £20 a month--which, after all, was not out of the way--he made various other stipulations, more, as it seemed to Reginald, for the pleasure of so making them and fussing about, than for any wonderful advantage to himself.
"I must have a deposit," he said, adding cheerfully, "yachts do get sunk even here, and there's no telling what might happen, though I'm sure of one thing, sir, you wouldn't run away with her. Then she must be insured in the United States Governmental Insurance Company for the other half, and----"
But, to cut Mr. Juby short, Reginald, who had brought a very comfortable little sheaf of Bank of England notes wherewith to prosecute his search, consented to his terms, and became the tenant of the lamented Sir Barnaby's yacht. She proved, when he went down to see her before finally concluding negotiations, a very serviceable-looking little cutter, strongly built, having a good inventory, her ballast all lead, copper all new, a full outfit, and a double-purchase capstan. And she bore on her the name of a well-known Barbadoes builder, of whom, probably, the late baronet had purchased her new.
"I don't mind taking that nigger as far as Tortola," said Reginald, pointing out a man loafing about St. John's harbour, "if he wants a job as he says he does, but he'll have to go ashore there. I'm fond of sailing by myself and shan't employ him regularly, at any rate."
And in this way he set off upon his journey once more, sailing the Pompeia himself, and letting the negro potter about, cook a meal or two, and gossip a little on subjects of interest in the islands, but of none at all to him. And at Tortola--to which the man belonged--he sent him ashore, telling him that whenever the cutter came in and out he could come and see if he was wanted, and perhaps earn a shilling or two. The weather was everything that could be desired, and, had Reginald been the most Cockney yachtsman that ever kept a yacht in the Thames, instead of a skilful sailor, he would have found it all he wished, while the cruise past the intermediate islands was charming even to him, who had seen so much of the world.
The great peak of Nevis interested him by recalling the fact that it was in this island that Nelson found his wife, when, as captain of the Boreas, he brought his ship here after chasing the French fleet; while St. Kitt's, with its "Mount Misery," and its claims to be the Gibraltar of the West Indies, appealed also to his naval mind. And, when the scarlet-roofed houses of St. Thomas, surrounded by the glorious foliage of that fair island, hove into sight as the Pompeia left Santa Cruz on her port beam, he felt a thrill of satisfaction, mixed, perhaps, with excitement at the knowledge that Coffin Island was at hand. Another day or so would bring him to the place of which his relative had, in his quaint style, left so graphic a description; he would probably come into contact with the strange family that dwelt in Coffin Island; he would be near his inheritance.
"Yet," he said to himself, as he set the yacht's head a point further north, to run up what still retains its old name of "Sir Francis Drake's Passage"--"yet is it my inheritance? Or does it not by right belong to this poor family, who, it seems, have for over a hundred years been searching hopelessly for it? Is it theirs or mine? Theirs--who, by some strange fate, have come to the knowledge that treasure is buried here, perhaps was buried by their own ancestors, who left the story of it--or mine, who am only the kinsman of the man who lighted on that treasure, but could not take it away with him? Well! I shall see. Perhaps, when I have met these people who live in so primitive a state, I shall know better what to do--know whether it is best to get the treasure and go off with it, or do my duty, and, if it is rightly theirs, restore it to them."
So, you will perceive, not only was Reginald a romantic and adventurous young man, but also a very straightforward one!