Now there is no doubt that Wick was greatly annoyed at this turn which affairs had taken, but he had the wit to conceal his chagrin. To go back to the island and dig at random would be mere foolishness, and his crew would be quick enough to tell him of it. For the authority of these buccaneer commanders is in truth shallow enough, and for anything like a reverse, or a piece of policy which does not prove immediately profitable, a captain is deposed with promptness, and another set up in his place. The which would not have suited Wick, who was very big with his position.
So after a meal and a sleep, when the crew were rested, a council was called of all hands to decide upon future movements, and the incident of the passage money was dropped then, and, so far as Master Laughan knows, for always.
But when Prince Rupert was restored to his fleet, he sailed round to that quarter and dug it from the place where it was hidden, namely, in the rough sands of the seashore, where the tide ebbed and flowed twice in the course of each natural day. And so in due time the treasure came to the hands of our gracious king at The Hague, and played its slender part in bringing about the blessed Restoration.
CHAPTER VI
THE MERMAID AND THE ACT OF FAITH
Surely men were never born with less eye to the future than these Brethren of the Coast, or Buccaneers, as they are more modernly named. Apart from slaying the wild cattle of Hispaniola and bucaning the resultant meat, their two sole industries were fighting and spoiling the Spaniard in the Carib Sea and on the Main, and then frittering away their hard-gotten gains at Tortuga over the wine shops and the hussies of the town, or against the cogged dice of Monsieur D'Ogeron, the Governor, up at his castle.
It was in vain that Captain Wick and that most noble of quartermasters, Prince Rupert, pointed out to the ship's company dazzling schemes for future gain. "They didn't know;" they "weren't feeling greedy;" it "seemed but a doubtful investment," and two or three, more candid than the rest, would be condemned if they took the pains to earn so much as a single piece-of-eight more, till they swilled what had been got down their thirsty necks. In fine, they were men for whom the morrow was so risky that they had grown to the habit of living only for the day, and it was one of their highest ambitions to have nothing in their pocket, if they should chance to be killed, that would benefit an enemy's purse.
'OH, I SAY WHAT I THINK,' RETORTED WATKIN WITH A SOUR LOOK