On landing, with Sambo as guide, we found that the whole of the pirates’ ill-gotten loot had been destroyed by the eruptions. We had previously learned from the negroes that it had been stored away in caves within the crater—in fact, close to the one where we had ourselves been confined so long. This was a great disappointment; but we ought, of course, to have been prepared for such a discovery. We were slightly consoled by finding a boat among the reeds in the creek, which had on board a case of doubloons and some bales of silk. Of the brig’s prize we could not find any trace, and Sambo gave it as his opinion that she must have broken adrift from her moorings while the earthquakes were going on, and have been carried away from the island by some strong current. Whether she had any one on board he did not know, or what had become of the survivors of her crew.
Sambo and Mother Bunch keep a bumboat at Port Royal now, and the other negro, who was a brother of Sambo’s, assists them. They were duly paid the fifty pounds they had been promised by the gunner, though, to tell the truth, it had almost to be forced on them.
If you ever go to Port Royal, you will probably see this happy trio coming alongside your vessel. I do not include the pickaninny, because the pickaninny you might see would not be the pickaninny of my story.
Reader, I trust that you have enjoyed reading these few leaves from my midshipman’s log. Alas, the time has come all too soon to say, Farewell!
“As the earth when leaves are dead,
As the night when sleep is sped,
As the heart when joy is fled,
I am left lone, alone.”
THE END.