CHAPTER XXVIII.
OFF TO THE VIRGIN ISLES.
The passengers by the Royal Mail steamer, especially the younger and fairer members thereof, felt an emotion of genuine regret when Reginald Crafer left the ship at Antigua, there to make the connection with the company's vessel, the Tyne, which runs to Anguilla and Tortola fortnightly.
For like so many, nay, almost all naval officers with but few exceptions, Reginald possessed those manly and pleasant graces which soon endear a stranger to any number of persons among whom he may happen to be thrown; and ere the steamer--crowded with tourists of the better class who were avoiding the rigour of our winter by a tour in the West Indian Islands--had been a week out of Southampton, he had made himself a general favourite. Of course he could dance--when did a sailor ever exist who could not?--also he could sing; he had seen much of the world and he was good-looking. Let anyone who has been on an ocean trip say if these accomplishments and charms are not sufficient to at once make a man popular in the community assembled on such an occasion.
And also there was about him some slight tinge of mystery, some little reticence on his part, as to what he wanted or desired to do at Anguilla or Tortola, which added a flavour to the manner in which this handsome young officer was regarded. For at either of these islands there is nothing for a man to do at all, unless he should desire to pass his life in breeding herds of goats, cows, or sheep, or in fishing, or rearing poultry, or cultivating a little cotton or sugar. And certainly Reginald Crafer did not seem to be a man of that sort.
"It can't be to see the bloomin' islands," said a bagman on board who was not a favourite, though possessing vast information about the locality, derived from visiting the whole of the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea on business, "because there's nothing to see, and as a naval officer I'll bet he's seen enough islands. And it can't hardly be a gal."
"Scarcely, I should imagine," said a stately young lady, by whom, as by others, this person's remarks were not much appreciated, "since I believe there are few gentlemen or ladies there except the Consuls and their families. Nor do I see that Lieutenant Crafer's business is your affair or mine," whereon she turned on her heel and left him.
Meanwhile Reginald, who, perhaps, was not unconscious of the curiosity he had raised, though taking no notice of it, had plenty to think of as well as having always to keep a guard upon his tongue.
Indeed, it would not be saying too much if the announcement was made that the discovery of Nicholas Crafer's statement had produced a total change, not only in this young man's method of life, but also in his mind.
When he had finished the perusal of that statement (which, you may remember, he began one November afternoon) another day had come; a foul, murky, fog-laden atmosphere was doing duty for the dawn. The river reeked with it, and so did the fields across the Thames. Also the fire had gone out now, though he had made it up several times during the night, the lamp had consumed nearly the last drop of oil in its glass bowl, and he could hear his old housekeeper and general servant shuffling about upstairs as though preparing to begin the day. And his eyes were wet with tears--tears which the last page or two of that finely-written, often misspelt, and sometimes nearly illegible manuscript had caused to spring to them. For to him, young and impressive--though as yet his heart had never been fairly touched by Love's rose-tipped wings--there seemed a sadness inexpressible in the story of his ancestor's love for the daughter of one of Oliver's officers who had died so young, and of the manner in which he had bought the house, so that daily, when he arose, the first place to meet his eyes should be the spot where they had walked together in those long-forgotten years.
"Poor old Nicholas!" he thought, as he went to the French windows and drew the heavy curtains that protected the room from the river's damp, and peered across that river to the other side; "poor old Nicholas! It was there you used to walk with her when you were both young. It was there, when you had grown old and she had long since gone and left you, that you used to gaze and dream of her. And," he went on, as he turned back into the room, "it was here, in this very spot, two hundred years ago, that you sat night by night writing that story alone, as I this night have sat alone and read it. I almost wonder that your ghost did not come forth and stand at my elbow, and peer over my shoulder at your crabbed, crooked handwriting as I did so."
He dropped the manuscript in his pocket as he finished his meditations and, going upstairs, met the old housekeeper coming down.
"Lawks, Mr. Reginald!" she said with a start, "what a turn you give me! Whatever have you got up so early for?"
"I have not been to bed yet, Maria," he said, "but I am going now." Then, observing her look of astonishment and the shaking of her head--perhaps she thought he had been wassailing in London and had only just come down by the early train--he said, "I have been engaged all night over some family papers. Call me at twelve and get some breakfast ready by then. I shall go to town directly afterwards. And, Maria, I shall be going abroad again soon; you will have the house all to yourself once more."
"Ha!" she said, with a grunt; "well, who's afraid? I ain't, neither of ghostes nor burgulars, tho' we had one----"
But Reginald was on his way to bed before she had finished her oration.
"The first thing to be done," he thought to himself, as he splashed about in his bath after that five hours' sleep--which was enough for him, since it was more than a watch below--"is to get a promise from the first Sea Lord, on the ground of 'urgent private affairs,' that I shall not be called upon to serve for another year. If I can manage that, then off I go to Coffin Island and dear old Nick's treasure. Lord bless me! how I would like to have known Nick--as Phips called him."
There had come into the young man's heart as he read that paper a feeling which, I suppose, often comes into the hearts of most of us who have ever had ancestors--the feeling that we would like to have known them, to have seen them and to have shaken hands with them, observed the quaint garb they wore, and listened to their quaint speech. So it was now with Reginald. He would have liked to have heard Nicholas tell the story instead of having read it, would like to have stood by his side when he fought the Etoyle, to have been by him when the drunken and delirious pirate died singing his song, to have accompanied him on that solitary voyage when he kept--good honest man!--a cheerful heart and trusted to his God alone to watch over him.
"I wonder whose treasure it was that he found?" the young man meditated--"not Alderly's, at any rate. The pirates never buried their treasure, though the story-books say they did, but rather took it with them to their favourite haunts to spend in a debauch. Even Alderly was doing that at the time Nicholas captured him; he had his box with him, full of ready money for spending purposes. And those others, those antique coins, those jewels and precious things, what were they? Buried, perhaps, by some French refugee who had been cast away on Coffin Island and found by Alderly, or stolen from some French treasure ship by an earlier pirate than Alderly, yet still found by him. Shall I ever know?"
But, whether he would ever know or not was a matter of very small importance to Reginald Crafer, in comparison with the fact that he was going to find them again himself, if he possibly could. For that they should not lie any longer in the middle Key above Coffin Island than it would take him to go and fetch them, he was very firmly resolved.
"The Key isn't likely to have shifted," he reflected, "nor to have become entirely covered by the sea for good and all. And if it has, why, science has advanced a bit since the days of Nicholas, and we will have it out. The treasure has been found twice as it has been buried twice--once by its original owner, as I believe, and once by Nicholas; I'll make the third finder. There's luck in odd numbers!" and remembering his Latin, of which he had a better knowledge than his sailor relative had had, he murmured, "Numero deus impare gaudet!"
The First Sea Lord proved kind, perhaps because Reginald was a young officer who had done well and was favourably known already, besides having once served in his own flag-ship and come under his notice; and though he hummed and hawed a little at first, and talked a good deal about the shortness of lieutenants, and so many being required to be called out for the Naval Manœuvres, and so on, at last said that he thought he might promise that Lieutenant Crafer's services should not be asked for for another year. Then, next, the young man bought a chart of the Caribbean Sea, and, as the charts of to-day are rather better than they were in the elder Crafer's time, he found Coffin Island marked very plainly, though still not named, thereon; and he also saw the three Keys dotted on it. "So that's all right and comfortable," Reginald said to himself, whereon he at once made all his plans for going on his search, and, as has been told, had by now arrived at Antigua, whence the Tyne goes fortnightly to Tortola and Anguilla.
Yet, when he had settled down here to wait for that vessel's sailing--which would not be for another forty-eight hours--he scarcely knew how he should set about his work. Coffin Island might be inhabited by now, for all he knew, though judging by the little knowledge possessed of it by any of the personnel of the ship in which he had come out, it did not appear very probable that it was. Nobody on board that ship could say whether it was occupied or not, most of the officers, indeed, being a little hazy as to where Coffin Island was.
However, by the next day he had gained one piece of information which might or might not be true, but that, if the former, was likely to throw some difficulties in his way. He had learnt that there were inhabitants--as his informant believed, though he wouldn't be certain--on the island; for that there was such a place as Coffin Island was very well known in Antigua, if not in the Royal Mail steamers.
He had encountered as he lounged about the hotel in St. John's--which is the capital of Antigua,--one of those busy gentlemen who are to be found in almost every part of the world to which strangers come and go: an American. This worthy person, who was young, tall, and dandified, having in his "bosom" a beautiful diamond pin, addressed Reginald the first moment he saw him with such a flood of offers and questions as almost stunned him; yet so long was the flow of oratory that it gave him time to collect his thoughts and be wary.
"If," said Mr. Hiram Juby, as he handed out a big card with that name on it, "you are thinking of settling here, I can be of assistance to you. Though, if you're buying land, I should scarcely recommend Antigua. It is not very remunerative and not cheap. Now, in Dominica, which has no export duties, sir, Crown land can be obtained for two dollars and a half an acre. Trinidad is five dollars, St. Lucia five; Tobago, also without export duties, is two and a half. I am also an agent for the United States Governmental Insurance Company, patronised and insured in by the first families of the----"
"I am not thinking of buying any land, Mr. Juby," Reginald said, quietly.
"Then you must be a tourist. Therefore, you will want to know the best hotels. Now there is----"
"I shall stay at no hotels," Reginald again replied.
"Stay at no hotels! Then you are perhaps going to camp out. If so, I have the agency for some of the best United States tents, utensils, rifles and guns, hickory fishing-rods, and so forth. Sir, will you take a cocktail, or shall we try a dish of mangrove oysters? Or, if you are a conchologist, mineralogist, or botanist, I should like to show you some collections I have for sale which would save you much labour and classification----"
"Sir," said Reginald, "I am none of those things! I am a sailor amusing myself with a visit to this lovely spot. I want nothing," and he turned on his heel.
"Stay, sir, stay, I beg," Mr. Juby said, going after him as he left the verandah. "You are a sailor visiting this lovely spot, and you want nothing I can supply you with! Why, sir, I have the very thing for you--a thing that would have suited nobody but a sailor. I have a little thirteen-ton cutter yacht--it belonged to Sir Barnaby Briggs--your countryman, sir, who died of drink, so they said, not I, in Guadaloupe--but then these French will say anything but their prayers. And I will let it you, sell it to you, furnish it for you, find you a sailor man or so----"
"What," said Reginald, interested now, for he thought perhaps here was the best way of all in which to visit Coffin Island--"what do you want for the hire of it?"
But before even these terms could be arranged, Mr. Juby insisted--and he would take no denial--that they should be discussed over the most popular drink in all the West Indian Islands, a cocktail; so on to the verandah they went to partake of one. And it was among the various acquaintances to whom Mr. Juby--in thorough American fashion--insisted on "presenting" Reginald, that he learnt that Coffin Island was inhabited.