BUBBLES.
BY JOHN NEAL.
"Hurrah for bubbles! I go for bubbles, my dear," stopping for a moment on his way through the large drawing-rooms, and looking at his wife and the baby very much as a painter might do while in labor with a new picture. "Bubbles are the only things worth living for."
"Bubbles, Peter!—be quiet, baby!—hush, my love, hush! Papa can't take you now."
Baby jumps at the table.
"Confound the imp! There goes the inkstand!"
"Yes, my dear; and the spectacles, and the lamp, and all your papers. And what, else could you expect, pray? Here he's been trying to make you stop and speak to him, every time you have gone by the table, for the last half hour, and holding out his little arms to you; while you have been walking to and fro as if you were walking for a wager, with your eyes rolled up in your head, muttering to yourself—mutter, mutter, mutter—and taking no more notice of him, poor little fellow, than if he was a rag-baby, or belonged to somebody else!"
"Oh, don't bother! Little arms, indeed!—about the size of my leg! I do wish he'd be quiet. I'm working out a problem."
"A problem! fiddle-de-dee—hush, baby! A magazine article, more like—will you hush?"
Papa turns away in despair, muttering, with a voice that grows louder and louder as he warms up—
"Wisdom and wit are bubbles! Atoms and systems into ruin, hurled! And now a bubble burst! And now a WORLD! I have it, hurrah! Can't you keep that child still?"
"Man alive, I wish you'd try yourself!"
"Humph! What the plague is he up for at this time o' night, hey?"
"At this time o' night! Why what on earth are you thinking of? It is only a little after five, my dear."
"Well, and what if it is? Ought to have been a-bed and asleep two hours ago."
"And so he was, my love; but you can't expect him to sleep all the time—there! there!"—trotting baby with all her might—"Hush-a-bye-baby on the tree top—there! there!—papa's gone a-huntin'—"
"My dear!"
"My love!"
"Look at me, will you? How on earth is a fellow to marshal his thoughts—will you be quiet, sir?—to marshal his thoughts 'the way they should go'—Mercy on us, he'll split his throat!"
"Or train up a child the way he should go, hey?"
"Thunder and lightning, he'll drive me distracted! I wonder if there is such a thing as a ditch or a horsepond anywhere in the neighborhood."
"Oh! that reminds me of something, my love. I ought to have mentioned it before. The cistern's out."
"The cistern's out, hey? Well, what if it is? Are we to have this kicking and squalling till the cistern's full again, hey?"
"Why what possesses you?"
"Couldn't see the connection, that's all. I ask for a horsepond or a ditch, and you tell me the cistern's out. If it were full, there might be some hope for me," looking savagely at the baby, "I suppose it's deep enough."
"For shame!—do hush, baby, will ye? Tuddy, tuddy, how he bawls!"
"Couldn't you tighten the cap-strings a little, my dear?"
"Monster! get away, will you?'
"Or cram your handkerchief down his throat, or your knitting-work, or the lamp-rug?"
"Ah, well thought of, my dear. Have you seen Mr. Smith?"
"What Smith?"
"George, I believe. The man you buy your oil of, and your groceries.—Hush, baby! He's been here two or three times after you this week."
"Hang Mr. Smith!"
"With all my heart, my love. But, if the quarter's rent is not paid, you know, and the grocer's bill, and the baker's, and the butcher's, and if you don't manage to get the bottling-house fixed up, and some other little matters attended to, I don't exactly see how the hanging of poor Mr. Smith would help us."
"Oh hush, will you?"
The young wife turned and kissed the baby, with her large indolent eyes fixed upon the door somewhat nervously. She had touched the bell more than once without being seen by her husband.
"Wisdom and wit," continued papa, with a voice like that of a man who has overslept himself and hopes to make up for lost time by walking very fast, and talking very little to the purpose—"Wisdom and wit are bubbles"—
The young wife nodded with a sort of a smile, and the baby, rolling over in her lap, let fly both heels? at the nurse, who had crept in slyly, as if intent to lug him off to bed without his knowledge. But he was not in a humor to be trifled with; and so he flopped over on the other side, and, tumbling head over heels upon the floor, very much at large, lay there kicking and screaming till he grew black in the face. But the girl persisted, nevertheless, in lifting him up and lugging him off to the door, notwithstanding his outcries and the expostulatory looks of both papa and mamma—her wages were evidently in arrears, a whole quarter, perhaps.
"Wisdom and wit are bubbles," continued papa; "dominion and power, and beauty and strength"—
"And gingerbread and cheese," added mamma, in reply to something said by the girl in a sort of stage-whisper.
Whereupon papa, stopping short, and looking at mamma for a few moments, puzzled and well nigh speechless, gasped out—
"And gingerbread and cheese! Why, what the plague do you mean, Sarah?"
"Nothing else for tea, my love, so Bridget says. Not a pound o' flour in the house; not so much as a loaf, nor a roll, nor a muffin to be had for love or money—so Bridget says."
"Nothin' to be had without money, ma'am; that's what I said."
"Bridget!"
"Sir!"
That "sir!"—it was an admission of two quarters in arrear at least.
"Take that child to bed this moment! Begone! I'll bear this no longer."
The girl stared, muttered, grabbed the baby, and flung away with such an air—three quarters due, if there was a single day!—banged the door to after her, and bundled off up the front stairs at a hand-gallop, her tread growing heavier, and her voice louder and louder with every plunge.
"Sarah!"
"Peter!"
"I wonder you can put up with such insolence. That girl is getting insufferable."
The poor wife looked up in amazement, but opened not her mouth; and the husband continued walking the floor with a tread that shook the whole house, and stopping occasionally, as if to watch the effect, or to see how much further he might go without injury to his own health.
"How often have I told you, my dear, that if a woman would be respected by her own servants, she must respect herself, and never allow a word nor a look of impertinence—never! never!—not even a look! Why, Sarah, life itself would be a burthen to me. Upon my word," growing more and more in earnest every moment—"Upon my word, I believe I should hang myself! And how you can bear it—you, with a nature so gentle and so affectionate, and so—I declare to you"—
"Pray don't speak so loud, my love. The people that are going by the window stop and look up towards the house. And what will the Peabodys think?"
"What do I care! Let them think what they please. Am I to regulate the affairs of my household by what a neighbor may happen to think, hey? The fact is, my dear Sarah—you must excuse me, I don't want to hurt your feelings—but, the fact is, you ought to have had the child put to bed three hours ago."
"Three hours ago!"
"Yes, three hours ago; and that would have prevented all this trouble."
Not a word from the young, patient wife; but she turned away hurriedly, and there was a twinkle, as of a rain-drop, falling through the lamplight.
A dead silence followed. After a few more turns, the husband stopped, and, with something of self-reproach in his tone, said—
"I take it for granted there is nothing the matter with the boy?"
No answer.
"Have you any idea what made him cry so terribly? Teething, perhaps."
No answer.
"Or the colic. You do not answer me, Sarah. It cannot be that you have allowed that girl to put him to bed, if there is anything the matter with him, poor little fellow!"
The young wife looked up, sorrowing and frightened.
"The measles are about, you know, and the scarlet fever, and the hooping-cough, and the mumps; but, surely, a mother who is with her child all night long and all day long ought to be able to see the symptoms of any and every ailment before they would be suspected by another. And if it should so happen"—
The poor wife could be silent no longer.
"The child is well enough," said she, somewhat stoutly. "He was never better in his life. But he wanted his papa to take him, and he wouldn't; and reaching after him he tipped over the lamp, and then—and then"—and here she jumped up to leave the room; but her husband was too quick for her.
"That child's temper will be ruined," said papa.
"To be sure it will," said mamma; "and I've always said so."
She couldn't help it; but she was very sorry, and not a little flurried when her husband, turning short upon her, said—
"I understand you, Sarah. Perhaps he wanted me to take him up to bed?"
No answer.
"I wonder if he expects me to do that for him till he is married? Little arms, indeed!"
No answer.
"Or till he is wanted to do as much for me?"
No answer; not even a smile.
And now the unhappy father, by no means ready to give up, though not at all satisfied with himself, begins walking the floor anew and muttering to himself, and looking sideways at his dear patient wife, who has gone back to the table, and is employed in getting up another large basket of baby-things, with trembling lips and eyes running over in bashful thankfulness and silence.
"Well, well, there is no help for it, I dare say. As we brew we must bake. It would be not merely unreasonable, but silly—foolish—absolutely foolish—whew!—to ask of a woman, however admirable her disposition may be, for a—for a straightforward—Why what the plague are you laughing at, Sarah? What have you got there?"
Without saying a word, mamma pushed over towards him a new French caricature, just out, representing a man well wrapped up in a great coat with large capes, and long boots, and carrying an umbrella over his own head, from which is pouring a puddle of water down the back of a delicate fashionable woman—his wife, anybody might know—wearing thin slippers and a very thin muslin dress, and making her way through the gutters on tip-toe, with the legend, "You are never satisfied!" "Tu n'est jamais contente!"
Instead of gulping down the joke, and laughing heartily—or making believe laugh, which is the next best thing, in all such cases—papa stood upon his dignity, and, after an awful pause, went on talking to himself pretty much as follows:—
"According to Shakspeare—and what higher authority can we have?—reputation itself is but a bubble, blown by the cannon's mouth: and therefore do I say, and stick to it—hurrah for bubbles!"
The young wife smiled; but her eyes were fixed upon a very small cap, with a mournful and touching expression, and her delicate fingers were busy upon its border with that regular, steady, incessant motion which, beginning soon after marriage, ends only with sickness or death.
"And," continued papa—"and, if Moore is to be believed, the great world itself, with all its wonders and its glories—the past, the present, and the future, is but a 'fleeting show.'"
The young wife nodded, and fell to dancing the baby's cap on the tips of her fingers.
"And what are bubbles," continued papa, "what are bubbles but a 'fleeting show?'"
The little cap canted over o' one side, and there was a sort of a giggle, just the least bit in the world, it was so cunning, as papa added, in unspeakable solemnity—
"And so, too, everything we covet, everything we love, and everything we revere on earth, are but emptiness and vanity."
Here a nod from the little cap, mounted on the mother's fingers, brought papa to a full stop—a change of look followed—a downright smile—and then a much pleasanter sort of speech—and then, as you live, a kiss!
"And what are bubbles, I should be glad to know, but emptiness and vanity?" continues papa.
"By all this, I am to understand that a wife is a bubble—hey?"
"To be sure."
"And the baby?"
"Another."
"And what are husbands?"
"Bubbles of a large growth."
"Agreed!—I have nothing more to say."
"Look about you. Watch the busiest man you know—the wisest, the greatest, among the renowned, the ambitious, and the mighty of earth, and tell me if you can see one who does not spend his life blowing bubbles in the sunshine—through the stump of a tobacco pipe. What living creature did you ever know—"
"Did you speak to me, my dear?"
"No. Sarah, I was speaking to posterity."
Another nod from the little cap, and papa grows human.
"Yes!—what living creature did you ever know who was not more of a bubble-hunter than he was anything else? We are all schemers—even the wisest and the best—all visionaries, my dear."
By this time, papa had got mamma upon his knee, and the rest of the conversation was at least an octave lower.
"Even so, my love. And what, after all, is the looming at sea; the Fata Morgana in the Straits of Messina, near Reggio; or the Mirage of the Desert, in Egypt and Persia, but a sample of those glittering phantasmagoria, which are called chateaux en Espagne, or castles in the air, by the wondrous men who spend their lives in piling them up, story upon story, turrets, towers, and steeples—domes, and roofs, and pinnacles? and therefore do I say again, hurrah for bubbles!"
"What say you to the South Sea bubble, my dear?"
"What say I!—just what I say of the Tulip bubble, of the Mississippi Scheme, of the Merino Sheep enterprise, of the Down-East Timber lands, of the Morus Multicaulis, of the California fever, and the Cuba hallucination. They are periodical outbreaks of commercial enterprise, unavoidable in the very nature of things, and never long, nor safely postponed; growing out of a plethora—never out of a scarcity—a plethora of wealth and population, and corresponding, in the regularity of their returns, with the plague and the cholera."
"And these are what you have called bubbles?"
"Precisely."
"And yet, if I understood you aright, when you said, 'I go for bubbles—hurrah for bubbles'—you meant to speak well of them?"
"To be sure I did—certainly—yes—no—so far as a magazine article goes, I did."
"But a magazine article, my love—bear with me, I pray you—ought to be something better than a brilliant paradox, hey?"
"Go on—I like this."
"If you will promise not to be angry."
"I do."
"Well, then—however telling it may be to hurrah for bubbles, and to call your wife a bubble, and your child another; because the world is all a 'fleeting show,' and bubbles are a 'fleeting show;' or because the Scriptures tell us that everything here is emptiness and vanity—and bubbles are emptiness and vanity; I have the whole of your argument, I believe?—is hardly worthy of a man, who, in writing, would wish to make his fellow-man better or wiser—"
"Well done the bubble!—I never heard you reason before: keep it up, my dear."
"You never gave me a chance; and, by the way, there is one bubble you have entirely overlooked."
"And what is that—marriage?"
"No."
"The buried treasures, and the cross of pure gold, a foot and a half long, you were talking with that worthy man about, last winter, when I came upon you by surprise, and found you both sitting together in the dark—and whispering so mysteriously?"
"Captain Watts, you mean, the lighthouse keeper?"
"Yes. Upon my word, Peter, I began to think you were up for California. I never knew you so absent in all your life as you were, day after day, for a long while after that conversation."
"The very thing, my dear!—and as I happen to know most of the parties, and was in communication for three whole years with the leader of the enterprise, I do think it would be one of the very best illustrations to be found, in our day, of that strange, steadfast, unquenchable faith, which upholds the bubble-hunter through all the sorrows and all the discouragements of life, happen what may: and you shall have the credit of suggesting that story. But then, look you, my dear—if I content myself with telling the simple truth, nobody will believe me."
"Try it."
"I will!—Good night, my dear."
"Don't make a long story of it, I beseech you.—Good night!"
"Hadn't you better leave the little cap with me? It may keep you awake, my dear."
"Nonsense. Good night!" and papa drops into a chair, makes a pen, and goes to work as follows:—
Now for it: here goes! In the year 1841, there was a man living at Portland, Maine, whose life, were it faithfully written out, would be one of the most amusing, perhaps one of the most instructive, books of our day. Energetic, hopeful, credulous to a proverb, and yet sagacious enough to astonish everybody when he prospered, and to set everybody laughing at him when he did not, he had gone into all sorts of speculation, head over heels, in the course of a few years, and failed in everything he undertook. At one time, he was a retail dry-goods dealer, and failed: then a manufacturer by water power of cheap household furniture, and failed again: then a large hay-dealer: then a holder of nobody knows how many shares in the Marr Estate, whereby he managed to feather his nest very handsomely, they say; then he went into the land business, and bought and sold township after township, till he was believed to be worth half a million, and used to give away a tithe of his profits to poor widows, at the rate of ten thousand dollars a year; offering the cash, but always giving on interest—simple interest—which was never paid—failed: tried his hand at working Jewell's Island, in Casco Bay, at one time, for copperas; and at another, for treasures buried there by Captain Kyd. Let us call him Colonel Jones, for our present purpose; that being a name he went by, at a pinch, for a short period.
Well, one day he called upon me—it was in the year 1842, I should say—and, shutting the door softly, and looking about, as if to make sure that no listeners were nigh, and speaking in a low voice, he asked if I had a few minutes to spare.
I bowed.
He then drew his chair up close to mine, so near as to touch, and, looking me straight in the eyes, asked if I was a believer in animal magnetism; waiting, open-mouthed, for my answer.
"Certainly," said I.
Whereupon he drew a long breath, and fell to rubbing his hands with great cheerfulness and pertinacity.
"In clairvoyance, too—perhaps?"
"Most assuredly—up to a certain point."
"I knew it! I knew it!" jumping up and preparing to go. "Just what I wanted—that's enough—I'm satisfied—good-by!"
"Stop a moment, my good fellow. The questions you put are so general that my answers may mislead you."
He began to grow restless and fidgety.
"Although I am a believer in what I call animal magnetism and clairvoyance, I would not have you understand that I am a believer in a hundredth part of the stories told of others. What I see with my own eyes, and have had a fair opportunity of investigating and verifying, that I believe. What others tell me, I neither believe nor disbelieve. I wait for the proof. Suppose you state the case fairly."
"Do you believe that a clairvoyant can see hidden treasure in the earth, and that it would be safe to rely upon the assurances of such a person made in the magnetic sleep?"
"No."
"But suppose you had tried her?"
"Her! In what way?"
"By hiding a watch, for example, or a bit of gold, or a silver spoon, where nobody knew of it but yourself?"
"No; not even then."
"No! And why not, pray?"
"Simply because, judging by the experiments I have been able to make, I do not see any good reason for believing that, because a subject may tell us of what we ourselves know, or have heretofore known, which I admit very common, therefore she can tell me what I do not know and never did know. My notion is—but I maybe mistaken—that she sees with my eyes, hears with my ears, and remembers with my memory; and that she can do nothing more than reflect my mind while we are in communication."
"May be so; but the woman we are dealing with has actually pointed out the direction, and, at last, by a process of lining peculiar to herself, the actual position of what I had buried in the earth at a considerable distance, and without the knowledge or help of any living creature."
"Could she do this always and with certainty, and so that a third person might go to the treasure without help, on hearing her directions?"
"Why no, perhaps not; for that some few mistakes may have occurred, in the progress of our investigations, I am not disposed to deny."
"Probably. But, after all, were the directions given by her at any time, under any circumstances, definite and clear enough to justify a man of plain common sense in risking his reputation or money upon a third party's finding, without help, what you had concealed?"
Instead of answering my question, the poor fellow grew uneasy, and pale, and anxious; and, after considering awhile, and getting up and sitting down perhaps half a dozen times before he could make up his mind what to say, he told me a story—one of the most improbable I ever heard in my life—the leading features of which, nevertheless, I know to be true, and will vouch for as matters of fact.
There had been here, in Portland, for about six months, it appeared, a strange-looking, mysterious man—I give the facts, without pretending to give the words—who went by the name of Greenleaf. He was a sailor, and boarded with a man who kept a sailor boarding-house, and who, I am told, is still living here, by the name of Mellon. People had taken it into their heads that the stranger had something upon his mind, as he avoided conversation, took long walks by himself, and muttered all night long in his sleep. After a while, it began to be whispered about among the seafaring people that he was a pirate; and Mellon, his landlord, went so far as to acknowledge that he had his reasons for thinking so; although Greenleaf, on finding himself treated, and watched, and questioned more narrowly than he liked, managed to drop something about having sailed under the Brazilian flag. And, on being plied with liquor one day, with listeners about him, he went into some fuller particulars, which set them all agog. These, reaching the ears of Colonel Jones, led to an interview, from which he gathered that Greenleaf was one of a large crew commissioned by the Brazils in 1826; that, after cruising a long while in a latitude swarming with Spanish vessels of war, they got reduced to twenty-five men, all told. That one day they fell in with a large, heavily-laden ship, from which they took about three hundred and fifty thousand dollars, in gold and silver, and a massive gold cross, nearly two feet long, and weighing from fifteen to twenty pounds, belonging to a Spanish priest; but what they did with the crew and the passengers, or with the ship and the priest, did not appear. That, soon after getting their treasure aboard, they saw a large sail to windward, which they took to be a Spanish frigate; and, being satisfied with their booty, they altered their course, and steered for a desolate island near Guadaloupe, where, after taking out three hundred doubloons apiece, they landed, with the rest of the treasure packed in gun-cases, and hooped with iron; dug a hole in the earth and buried it; carefully removing the turf and replacing it, and carrying off all the dirt, and scattering it along the shore. That they took the bearings of certain natural objects, and marked the trees, and agreed among themselves, under oath, not to disturb the treasure till fifteen years had gone by, when it was to belong to the survivors. That, having done this, they steered for the Havana, and, after altering their craft to a fore-and-aft schooner, sold her, and shared the money. Being flush, and riotous, and quarrelsome, they soon got a-fighting among themselves; and, within a few months, by the help of the yellow fever, not less than twenty-three out of the whole twenty-five were buried, leaving only this Greenleaf and an old man, who went by the name of Thomas Taylor, and who had not been heard of for many years, and was now believed to be dead.
A fortune-teller was consulted, and put into a magnetic sleep, and, if the description they had painted of the man they were after could be depended on by her, they would find him, under another name, in a national ship on the East India station.
Here the Colonel began rubbing his hands again.
It appeared, moreover, that Taylor and Greenleaf had met more than once, and consulted together, and made two or three attempts to charter a vessel; but, being poor and among strangers, and afraid of trusting to other people—no matter why—they finally agreed to lie by till they were better off, and not be seen together till they should be able to undertake the enterprise without help from anybody.
"But," said Greenleaf. "I am tired of waiting. He may be dead for all I know He was an old man. At any rate, he is beyond my reach, out of hail; and so, d'ye see, if you'll rig us out a small schooner, of not more than seventy-five or eighty tons, I will go with you, and ask for no wages; and here's the landlord'll go, too, on the same lay; and, if you'll give me a third of what we find, I'll answer for Taylor, dead or alive, and you shall be welcome to the rest, and may do what you like with it."
"Would they consent to go unarmed?"
"Yes."
And all these facts being communicated to some of our people, and agreed to, a small schooner was chartered—the Napoleon, of ninety tons; Captain John Sawyer was put in master, and Watts, who had followed the sea forty years, and is now the keeper of Portland light, supercargo.
Not less than five, and it may be six, different voyages followed, one after the other, as fast as a vessel could be engaged and a crew got together; and, though nothing was "realized" but vexation, disappointment, and self-reproach, till the parties who had ventured upon the undertaking were almost ashamed to show their faces, there is not one of the whole to this hour, I verily believe, who does not stick to the faith and swear it was no bubble; and they are men of character and experience—men of business habits, cool and cautious in their calculations, and by no means given to chasing will-o'-the-wisps anywhere.
And now let me give the particulars that have since come to my knowledge, on the authority of those who were actually parties in the strange enterprise from first to last.
Before they sailed on their first voyage, they consulted a fortune teller by the name of Tarbox, who, without knowing their purpose, and while in a magnetic sleep, described the place, and the marks, and the treasure, even to the cross of gold, just as they had been described by Greenleaf himself. But she chilled their very blood at the time by whispering that, within two or three weeks at furthest, there would be a death among their number. Greenleaf made very light of the prediction at first, but grew serious, and, after a few days, gloomy, and refused to go. At last, however, he consented, and they had a very pleasant run to the edge of the Gulf Stream, latitude 38° and longitude 67°, when—but I must give this part of the story in the very language of Watts himself, a man still living, and worthy of entire confidence.
"We had been talking together pleasantly enough, and he seemed rather chippur. Only the night before, he had given me all the marks and bearings, and everything but the distance. He had never trusted anybody else in the same way, he said, but had rather taken a liking to me, and he kept back that one thing only that he might be safe, happen what must on the voyage. Well, we had been talking pleasantly together—it was about nine A.M., and the sea was running pretty high, and I had just turned to go aft, when something made me look round again, and I saw the poor fellow pitching head foremost over the side. He touched the water eight or ten feet from the vessel, but came up handsomely and struck out. He was a capital swimmer, and not at all frightened, so far as I could judge; for, if you'll believe me, squire, he never opened his mouth, but swum head and shoulders out of the water. At first, I thought he had jumped overboard; but afterwards, I made up my mind that he was knocked over by the leach of the foresail. I got hold of the gaff-topsail yard and run it under his arms, and threw a rope over him, and sung out 'Hold on, Greenleaf! hold on, and we'll save you yet.' But he took no notice of me, and steered right away from the vessel. I then called to Captain Sawyer that we would lower the boat, and asked him to jump in with me. There was a heavy sea on, and we let go the boat, and she filled; she riz once or twice, and then the stem and stern were ripped out, and the body went adrift; and when I looked again, there was nothing to be seen of poor Greenleaf. We ran for Guadaloupe and sold our cargo, and then for St. Thuras's, and then for the island where the money was buried. I offered to go ashore with Mellon, the Dutchman, though Captain Sawyer tried to discourage me."
"Well, you went ashore?"
"I did."
"And satisfied yourself?"
"I did."
"But how?"
"I found the marks and the trees, and a well sunk in the sand with a barrel in it; and I came to a place where the turf had settled, and a—and a—and, from what I saw, I believe the money was there just as much as I believe that I am talking with you now."
"You do!—then why the plague didn't you bring it home with you?"
"I'll tell you, squire. Fact is, we all agreed to go shears when the voyage was made up. Greenleaf was to have a third, the Dutchman a third, and Williams and M'Lellan a third, to be divided between Mr. C—Colonel Jones, I should say—Captain Sawyer, and myself. But, the moment Greenleaf was out of the way, the Dutchman grew sulky, and insisted on having his part—making two-thirds; and finally swore he would have it, or die. This we thought rather unreasonable; and, as I had the chart with me, and all the marks, while the Dutchman had nothing to help him in the search, I determined to lose myself on the island, feel round the shore a little, for my own satisfaction, and then steal off quietly, and try another voyage, with fewer partners. You understand, hey?"
"Well, my good friend, I don't ask you how you satisfied yourself; but I may as well acknowledge that I have understood from another owner—Colonel Jones himself—that you carried probes and other mining tools with you, such as you had been using on Jewell's Island for a long while; and that in pricking, where you found the turf a little sunk, you touched something about the size of a small tea-chest, and square, three feet below the surface?"
To this Watts made no answer.
"And here ended the first voyage, hey?"
"Yes."
"How many were made in all?"
"I made three trips, and Captain M'Lellan two—and it runs in my head there was another, but I am not sure. I returned from my third voyage on the 18th day of July, 1842, in the Grampus, a little schooner of about seventy-five tons."
"Perhaps you would have no objection to tell me something about the other voyages?"
"Well, squire, to tell you the truth, we didn't land at all on the second voyage. July 14th, we'd fell to leeward, and was beating up. I had been all night on the look-out—I was master that trip—and we had got far enough to bear up and run down under the lee of the island. We saw huts there, and twenty or thirty people, and we didn't much like their behavior. When they saw us, they ran down to the landing and took two boats and launched 'em. I offered to go ashore, if anybody would go with me. John Mac, he first agreed to it, but all the others refused; and then he said he would go if the others would. And then we steered for Portland Harbor."
"Well, and the third voyage?"
"That we made in the Grampus. Captain Josh Safford and Captain Bill Drinkwater went with us. We found two Spaniards upon the island. Their boats had gone to Porto Rico after provisions, they said. So Captain Safford, he gave them two muskets, with powder and ball, and they went off hunting goats. After this, I didn't consider myself justified in going ashore; and Captain Drinkwater complained a good deal of the liberty Safford took in supplying strangers with firearms. They might pop a fellow off at any time, you know, and nobody thereabouts would a ben the wiser."
"And here endeth the third voyage, hey?"
"Jess so."
"Do you happen to know anything about the other two?"
"Yes—for though I didn't go in the vessel, I knew pretty much all that happened. You see, Colonel Jones he went to work with the fortin-teller again; and he jest puts her to sleep, and tries her out and out, on Jewell's Island, where she found a skeleton fixed between two trees, and the walls of a hut, all grown over with large trees, and all the things he'd buried there; and then too, while we was at sea, she told him what we were doing, day by day, and they logged it all down: and when we got back and compared notes, we found it all true. Ah! he was a sharp one, I tell you! At last, he got her upon the track of Taylor. She found him in the East Indies, under another name, and shipped aboard one of our national ships. And so, what does he do but go to work and petition the Navy Department for Taylor's discharge, upon the ground that a grand estate had been left him—or, that he had large expectations, I forget which. He was very shy at first, and wouldn't acknowledge that he had ever gone by the name of Thomas Taylor. I dare say he had his reasons. But, after hunting him through hospitals, and navy yards, and sailor boarding-houses, and from ship to ship, the colonel he cornered him, and got him to say he would go with them. He told exactly the same story that Greenleaf did: I was taken sick, and couldn't go, and—-stop—I'm before my story, I believe—they made their voyage without him. They landed, dug trenches, and blistered their hands, and spent over two days in the search, while the schooner lay off and on, waiting for them: but they found nothing. After they got back, however, the colonel he had a meeting with the owners, and satisfied them all, in some way—I never knew how—that they had just reversed the bearings, and hadn't been near the place. How he knew, I can't say, for he had never been there, to my knowledge, and I happen to know that they must have been pretty near the spot, for they found a sort of a hillock that I remembered, and they told me all about the bearings, and they agreed with my chart."
"Well!—"
"Well, the next time they went, they took Taylor with them, and everything went on smoothly enough till one day, when the voyage was almost up, Taylor he said to Pearce—'Pearce,' said he, 'to-morrow, at this time, I shall be a rich man; and now,' says he, 'Mr. Pearce,' says he, 'I must have my letters.' Upon this, up steps John Mac, and says he, 'Taylor,' says he, 'when you want any letters, you'll have to come to me for them; and I shall have to put you upon allowance.' And then Taylor—he was an old man-o'-warsman, you see, and he couldn't get along without his grog—he jest ups and says—'that's enough, capt'n. You may haul aft the sheet, tack ship, and go home. I shall tell you nothing more. As soon as the money is safe—I see how 'tis—old Taylor'll have to go overboard.' And he stuck to what he said, though he went ashore with them, just to show them that he knew every point of the compass—for he told them where they would find a couple of holes in the ledge—and they found them there, just as he said; and the first thing they saw, there was Taylor away up on the top of a high mountain, smoking a pipe. He had always told them he knew how to get up there; but they never believed him, because they had all tried and couldn't fetch it."
"And he stuck to it, hey, and never told them anything more?"
"Jess so."
"And what became of Taylor? Is he living?"
"No; he died in the hospital at Bath not more than five years ago."
"And you still think the money was there?"
"Think!—I am sure of it."
"Do you believe it is there now?"
"Do I!—Certainly I do!"
Whereupon, all I have to say is—Hurrah for bubbles!