Porto Bello gold

by Arthur D. Howden Smith

"We get some fenison, ja," spoke up Peter, with marked enthusiasm for him.

He pointed toward the slopes of a hill this side of the Spyglass, and I had a brief glimpse of a string of white dots which leaped from crag to crag.

Murray laughed.

"You have keen eyes, friend Peter," he observed. "But if you will accept the aid of my glass you will perceive that what you saw were goats—the descendants, we are told, of a flock left here by the old buccaneers, to whom we owe an appreciable debt therefor. Goatflesh is not venison by long odds, but it hath much to commend it over salt beef and pork, and the tender bits of a young kid seethed in the milk of its dam—we are not obligated to obey the Mosaic code—might appeal even to an epicure of as unquestioned taste as yourself. There are, too, certain wildfowl and a breed of duck not to be despised; and we shall have much store of fish and shellfish. Yes, I can assure you additions to our diet which should go far to reconcile you with your lot."

Peter's face shone.

"Dot's goodt," he said. "Ja, now I fill oop my stomach wit'out it yumps from der wafes."

Several miles south of this mountain we sighted a white rock on a point of land and beyond it an islet and beyond that a much larger island. Murray ordered the helmsman to edge away to the east, and presently we bore off on a long tack to the so'east to fetch us around a patch of shoals. A man was ordered into the forechains with a leadline, and several others relayed his soundings aft along the deck to the poop. The water shoaled rapidly from ten fathoms to five and a trifle less; but Murray conned his way coolly, the Walrus scrupulously exact in our wake, and of a sudden we went about on the starboard tack and opened a wider, deeper harbor even than the North Inlet, on the right hand the shores of the smaller island, on the left the main itself.

My great-uncle turned over the conduct of the ship to Martin and crossed to where Peter and I stood, staring about us. Already we were under the lee of the smaller island, and the ship was making less way as the force of the wind was decreased. The water seemed strangely quiet—instead of bouncing us up and down, it did no more than purr and ripple as the bow cleaved through it. And the heat of the sun, unrelieved by the free sweep of the wind, became intense. In a few moments the decks were hot to the touch, and we might not lay our hands with comfort upon the bulwarks.

Here were no beaches; only mud-banks covered to the waterline with twisting, many-rooted trees, their foliage of an ardently soft green presenting impenetrable, whispering barriers to the eye. The channel curved, following the contour of the smaller island, and we sighted the mouth of a little river similar to that which had flowed into the head of the North Inlet.

"Starboard, Master Martin!" called my great-uncle as he joined Peter and me. "Starboard your helm, if you please. Aye, on to this shoal here. We shall have three fathoms and less to careen in. Bid them drop the anchor."