Chapter Thirteen.
Jan Steenbock gets Confidential.
“My stars, Chips!” exclaimed Hiram, who was standing near by when Tom Bullover held up his treasure-trove to view. “What hev ye got thaar, ship met?”
“Sorry o’ me knows,” returned the other, examining the object closely. “Seems like one o’ them blessed saints they has in the cathedral at Lima, which I went over one day last v’y’ge I took this side, when I sailed from Shields to Valparaiso, and arterwards come up the coast, our skipper looking out for a cargy, instead o’ going back home in ballast. It seems a pretty sort o’ himage, too, bo, and I’m hanged if I don’t think it’s gold, for it’s precious heavy for its size, I can tell you!”
“Chuck it over hyar an’ let’s see what it’s like,” said Hiram, his curiosity at once roused. “I’ll soon tell ye if it’s hunkydory ez soon ez I hev the handlin’ on it; fur I ken smell the reel sort, I guess, an’ knows it likewise by the feel it kinder hez about it.”
“Right you are, bo,” sang out Tom Bullover, pitching it towards him. “Catch!”
“Bully far yer!” cried Hiram, putting up his hands and clutching hold of the figure as, well thrown by the other, it came tumbling into his ready grasp. “I’ll soon tell ye what it’s made on, I reckon!”
He thereupon proceeded to inspect the object carefully, giving it a lick of his tongue and rough polish with his palms, to remove the dirt and dust with which it was partly encrusted, sniffing at it and handling it as if it were a piece of putty.
“Well, bo,” asked Tom at length, tired of waiting and eager to learn the result of the other’s examination; “is it all right?”
“You bet,” responded Hiram, tossing up the image in the air and catching it again, and raising a triumphant shout that at once attracted the attention of the other hands, who dropped their pickaxes and shovels instanter and came clustering round. “I’m jiggered if it ain’t gold, an’ durned good metal, too, with nary a bit o’ bogus stuff about it. Hooray!”
“Hooray!” yelled out the rest of the men in sympathy, the precious figure being passed round from one to another, so that each could see it in turn and judge for himself. “Hooray!”
“Hillo!” cried Captain Snaggs, noticing the commotion and coming bustling up, with his wiry goatee beard bristling and his pointed nose and keen eyes all attention. “What d’ye mean droppin’ work an loafin’ up hyar in a crowd, makin’ all that muss fur, hey?”
“We’ve just found this here figger, sir,” explained Tom Bullover; “and Hiram says it’s made o’ gold.”
“Thet’s so, cap,” corroborated the American sailor. “It air all thet; an’ goold of good grit, I reckon, too, or I’ll swaller the durned lump, I will, without sass!”
“Humph!” snorted the skipper, holding out his hand for it; “give us holt, an’ I’ll prospect it fur ye, if ye like. They usest to tell me I warn’t a bad jedge when I wer at the Carraboo diggin’s an’ went in fur minin’.”
The little image of the Madonna was accordingly handed to him, and the skipper’s nose wrinkled up, and twitched and jerked sideways, while his billy-goat beard bristled out like a porcupine’s quills, as he sniffed and examined the figure, turning it over and over in his hands and feeling it, the same as Hiram had done. He even went so far as to pinch it.
“Jee-rusalem!” he at length exclaimed; “it’s gold, sure enuff!”
“Hooray!” again burst from the men around. “Hooray!”
“I don’t see nothin’ to holler fur,” said Captain Snaggs, in response to this, bringing them up, as the saying goes, ‘with a round turn,’ as he turned round angrily. “Guess ye won’t find no more o’ the same sort skatin’ round the ranche!”
But, just then, Jan Steenbock came on the scene.
He had been busily engaged overseeing the construction of a species of coffer-dam across the shore at right angles and up to the keel of the ship at the point where the tide came up to, just by the mizzen-chains; so that the water should not get down into the excavation that the men were digging until this should be deep enough to float the vessel, or, at all events, assist in easing her off the beach—for, if flooded prematurely, the labour would be doubled.
The hands helping him having, however, deserted for the nonce and joined the rest of the crowd around Tom Bullover and Hiram, he came up, also, to the spot where all of us were standing, with the object of coaxing his gang back to their task. The sound of the men’s wild shout and the skipper’s voice, raised in anger, as he thought, hastened his footsteps, too, for he feared that some mischief was brewing, and that the crew had mutinied at the least.
The moment he got near, though, he could perceive, from the grinning faces and expression of those close by, that nothing very desperate was in the wind; and, he was just on the point of asking what the row was about, when, all at once, he caught sight of the image.
“Mein Gott!” he ejaculated, looking the picture of astonishment, and more excited than I had ever seen him, from the first day I stepped on board the ship until now,—“it vas ze Madonna of ze golt. Ze Madonna of ze golt!”
We all stared at him, filled with wonder at his apparent recognition of the figure. The skipper, however, at once interrogated him on the point.
“Jehosophat, mister!” cried Captain Snaggs, with mixed curiosity and impatience—“what d’ye mean? Hev ye ever seed this hyar figger afore?”
“Yase,” said the Dane, in his deep voice; “yase, I vas zee him one long time befores I vas know him ver’ well!”
“Thunder, ye don’t mean it! What, this durned identical image?”
“Yase, mitout doubt. I vas know dat zame idenzigal vigure,” replied the other imperturbably, his passing fit of excitement having cooled, leaving him as calm and impassive as usual. “It vas ze Madonna of ze golt dat we vas loose overboart from ze schgooners, one, doo, dree year ago.”
The skipper looked at him, without speaking further for a second or more, Jan Steenbock confronting him as steadfastly and placidly as a periwinkle might have been under the circumstances; while all of us around gazed at them both, open-mouthed with expectancy.
“What d’ye mean?” presently said Captain Snaggs, breaking the silence; “what schooner air ye talkin’ on?”
“Ze schgooners dat I vas zail in vrom Guayaquil dat time as I tell yous, vor to gatoh ze orchillas veeds.”
“But, mister, say, what hez thet stuff, which in coorse I knows on, to do with this durned old image hyar?” again interrogated the skipper, in an incredulous tone. “I guess ye air gettin’ a bit kinder mixed up, an’ yer yarn don’t hitch on an’ run smooth like!”
“Joost zo,” returned the imperturbable second-mate, in no way disturbed by this impeachment of his veracity. “You joost vait; I vas hab zometing vor to zay. Joost vait and I vas tell yous.”
“Carry on then,” said Captain Snaggs impatiently. “By thunder! ye air ez long gettin’ under way, I guess, ez a Cape Cod pilot. Fire away, an’ be durned to ye, an’ tell us the hull bilin’, mister!”
Jan Steenbock, however, would not allow himself to be hurried in this fashion. Quite unmoved by the skipper’s impatience, he went on in his slow, deliberate way, all of us listening with the keenest attention and steadying ourselves for a good yarn.
“It vas dree year ago dat I vas meet mit Cap’en Shackzon, of ze schgooners Mariposa, at Guayaquil,” he began sententiously, clearing his throat, and seeming to speak in deeper and deeper tones as he proceeded with his narrative. “He vas go, he tells me, vor a drading voy’ge to ze Galapagos Islants, and vas vant a zecond-mate, and vas ask me vor to come mit hims.”
“An’ ye wented,” interrupted the skipper—“hey?”
“Yase, I vas go! Cap’en Shackzon zays, zays he, bevore we sdart, dat ze schgooners vas to zail vor Jarls Islant, call’t by ze Sbaniards ‘Vloreana,’ vere dere vas a lot of beeples vrom Equador dat collect ze orchilla veeds, and vas drade likevise to ze mainland mit ze hides and zalt veesh, and ozer tings.”
“I reckon all thet don’t consarn us, mister,” said the skipper, arresting any further enumeration of the exports from Charles Island; “an’ so, ye went thaar to trade, hey?”
“Nein,” came Jan Steenbock’s unexpected answer; “ze schgooners vas not go to Jarls Islant.”
“Jee-rusalem!” exclaimed the skipper, taken aback by this naïve announcement. “Then, whaar in thunder did ye go?”
“Vait, and I vas tell yous,” said the other calmly, going on with his story in his own way. “Ven we vas zail vrom Guayaquil and vas at zee zome days, Cap’en Shackzon zays to me, zays he, ‘I vas engage yous’—dat vas me—‘vor and bekos I vas vant a man dat I can droost, mit all dis crew of gut-throat Sbaniards arount me. Can yous be zeegret and keep in ze gonfidence vat I tells you?’ In ze course, I vas zay to Cap’en Shackzon ‘yase;’ and, den—”
“What happened?” eagerly asked Captain Snaggs; “what happened?”
“We zails to ze norzard,” continued Jan, provokingly, refraining from disclosing at the moment the confidential communication he mentioned having been made to him. “We vas zail vor dree more day, and den we vas zee dat cap dere, dat Cap’en Shackzon vas zay is Cape Chalmers, and dat ze lant vas Abingdon Islant vere we vas now vas; and den he vas tell me his zeegret.”
“An’ thet wer what, eh, mister?” said the skipper, while all of us hung on his words, breathless now with excitement, our curiosity being aroused to the highest pitch. “Don’t kep us a-waitin’, thaar’s a friendly coon, fur I guess we air amost bustin’ to haar what thet air secret wer!”
“I beliefs zere vas no harms vor to tell?” observed the Dane reflectively, as if cogitating the matter over in his own mind and anxious to have another opinion to say whether or no his narration of the circumstances would be any breach of the trust reposed in him. “Cap’en Shackzon was det, and ze crew vas det, and zere vas nobozy dat vas aboart ze schgooners dat vas alifes but meinselfs.”
“Nary a bit o’ harm at all, mister, ez I ken see,” said Captain Snaggs decisively; “not where ther’ ain’t no folk alive to complain o’ ye tellin’ on it. Nary a bit o’ harm, I reckon!”
“Yase, I do not zee no harms,” continued Jan Steenbock, as if he had now made up his mind on the point; “and zo I vas tell yous. Ze zeegret dat Cap’en Shackzon tell to me vas dat he hat discovert von dreazure in a cave in ze islant von day dat he vas plown into ze bay in a squall; and ven he vas go back to Guayaquil, he vas charter ze schgooners to zail back to ze islant again. He vas tell ze beeples dere dat he vas go vor ze orchilla veeds and ze toordle; but, he vas mean to dig oop ze dreazure and take hims back zogreetly in ze schgooners to ze mainland, as if he vas only hab ze orchilla veeds and ze toordle on boart. He zays to me, zays Cap’en Shackzon, ‘ze Sbaniards in Equador is von bat lot, and vill murter a mans like one mosquito vor a tollar,’ and he vas know dat zey vas kill hims if zey vas zink he vas hab ze dreazure on boart; and, dat vas ze reason dat he vas vant von man dat he coot droost, joost like meinselfs, mit hims!”
“A treasure hyar, mister,” said the skipper, with his eyes aglow and his goatee beard bristling up, all agog at such news—“a treasure o’ gold, hey?”
“Yase, yase,” replied the other affirmatively; “oh, yase!”
“How come it hyar?”
“It vas burit by ze boocaneer in ze olt time—one, doo, dree huntert year ago,” explained Jan. “Cap’en Shackzon vas zee it writ in von book dat he vas zee at Guayaquil; and den, ven he vas zail here, he vas come to de zame blace dat ze boocaneer spoke of in ze book and hat burit ze golt. It vas ze ploonder of ze churches of ze coast, dat ze boocaneers hat collect in von big heep and zegreet in ze cave till zey coot take hims avay mit dem, and dere it vas remain till Cap’en Shackzon vound it.”
“He found it, hey?”
“Yase, he vind it von day, as I zays. His voot vas sdoomble in ze hole, and dat give vays; and den, he doombles into ze cave, and zee all ze dreasure of golt and silber and ozer tings.”
“An’ did ye see it, too, mister?” inquired Captain Snaggs anxiously. “Pyaps thet air coon wer only bamboozlin’ ye, an’ made up the yarn!”
“No, he vas not make it oop,” replied Jan. “I vas zee dat Madonna of golt dere and ozer tings dat he vas bring back vrom ze cave ven we vas coom here in ze schgooners, and anchor’t in ze bay dere as ze sheep vas now lay. But, Cap’en Shackzon vas von sdrange mans!”
“Thunder!” ejaculated the skipper, on the other pausing at this point, as if waiting for the question to be put. “How wer he streenge, mister, hey?”
“He vas like to keep zings to himselfs,” said Jan Steenbock meaningly. “He vas not let me go to ze cave at all, and ze schgooner vas anchor’t here in ze bay more dan a veek!”
“I s’pose he didn’t want the crew—them rascally Spaniards ye spoke on—smellin’ a rat an’ spilin’ his game, I reckon,” suggested the skipper; “but how did he manage, hey?”
“He vas keep ze mans all day hunting for ze orchilla veeds up ze montane dere,” replied Jan; “and den, ven ze night vas coom, he vas tell me to shtop on ze vatch, and den he vas go ashore to look for ze cave mit himselfs.”
“He didn’t spot it at once agen then?”
“Nein. He vas look in vain vor dree nights, and vas near give oop ze hoont in despair; but on ze ozer night he vas come back to ze schgooners in goot sbirrits, and zays to me, zays he, ‘I vas vind ze cave at last.’ He vas zo glat he vas laf mit joy and I vas laf, too!”
“I guess ye hed sunthin’ to snigger over, hey?”
“Yase, joost zo! I vas laf mit him; and den, he vas bring oot dat Madonna dere, dat he vas hab stow avay in his shirt, and vas show it to me, and ze vigure vas shin in ze moonlight. Ah, dat vas bat; vor, von of ze Sbaniards of ze crew vas zee it shin in ze light and show ze golt, and he vas tell ze ozers—a pack of raskels—and ze whole game was oop vor us and ze dreazure!”
“How’s thet, mister?” inquired the skipper, as Jan paused again here, his voice dropping. “Did the varmint spile ye?”
“Humph!” growled the other. “Dey vas spile zemselves! In ze mittle of ze night ze raskels go down into ze cabin vere Cap’en Shackzon vas ashleep and shtab him mit dere knifes. Den, zey shtole ze golt Madonna and brings it oop on ze deck; and den, zey get vighting vor ze vigure, and shtab von ze ozers, and dey vas vake me oop mit ze row, vor I vas tiret and vas ashleep in ze boate over ze taffrail.”
“An’ how did ye come off with a hull skin?” asked Captain Snaggs. “I guess ye wer in a durned tight corner.”
“Zee goot Gott vatch overs me!” replied Jan Steenbock gravely, raising his eyes reverently upward as he uttered the word, “vor, in ze mittle of ze row, ven ze raskels vas all of zem murtering each ozers and ze deck vas rolling in bloot, a sudden gale vas spring oop; and ze schgooner vas dash on ze rocks dere to port, and she vas go down in ze deep vater, mit ze crew still vighting on ze deck to ze last. One—doo—dree—vore—mens vas already kil’t, besides Cap’en Schackzon—ze lifing and ze det going down zogeder into de zee, mit ze golt Madonna dat you vas now vind!”
“An’ how did ye scrape through, hey?”
“I vas schvim ashore,” answered Jan Steenbock, in reply to this question from the skipper, who followed his recital carefully, with his inquisitive long nose twitching every now and then, and his billy-goat beard wagging as he nodded his head, watching apparently to catch the other tripping in his story. “I vas schvim ashore and go to landt all raite.”
“What became o’ ye then?”
“I vas shtop heres till I vas pick oop by a passing sheep.”
“Her name, mister?” again interrogated Captain Snaggs, with keen pertinacity. “Thet is if ye reck’lects.”
“Oh, yase, I vas remembers very well,” rejoined the other, equal to the occasion. “She vas ze whaling barque Jemima Greens, of Bostone, I zinks.”
“Thet’s right; I knows her,” interrupted the skipper, quite satisfied. “Joe Davis master, hey?”
“Yase, joost zo,” replied the other, “dat vas ze name of ze cap’en, I remembers.”
“An’ how long did ye remain aboard her?”
“Vor more dan vore months. She vas veeshing vor ze whale ven she pick me oop vrom here; and I vas hab to vait till she vas load up mit ze oils, ven she vas go zouth, and landt me at Valparaizo. Vrom dat port I vas vork mein passage back to England ze next zommer—and dat vas dree year ago.”
“Waal, thet’s a tall yarn, anyhow,” said the skipper, when Jan Steenbock had thus concluded his strange history; “but, dew ye mean ter say ez how ye hev never ben nigh this place hyar agen sin’ thet time?”
“Nein,” replied the other frankly, “nevaire!”
“What! d’ye mean ter say ez how ye hed no kinder sort o’ curiosity like to find thet thaar cave, with the rest o’ thet gold an’ treasure what them old buccaneers stowed away so snug, ’specially arter seein’ it wer’ reel?”
“No, cap’en,” said Jan Steenbock firmly, as if he had previously well considered all the bearings of the case and arrived at his final decision. “I vas nevaire likes vor to zee dat blace nor ze golt again—no, nevaire!”
“But, why, mister?” asked the skipper, with insatiable curiosity, winking to the hands round, to call their attention to the fact that he was about to take a rise out of the simple-hearted Dane, and ‘trot him out,’ as it were, for their mutual amusement. “Why shouldn’t ye hanker arter seein’ the gold agen, mister? I guess ye didn’t hev too much on it afore; an’, I’m durned if ye hev got much of a pile now, ez fur ez I ken see!”
Jan Steenbock’s answer, however, completely staggered him, banishing all his merriment and facetiousness in an instant.
“It vas curst,” said the Dane solemnly. “Ze golt and ze islandt and everyting vas shtink mit ze black man’s bloot!”