"Stand off, you wretches, at your peril!" cried the captain, in stern accents.
The guns of the ship were trained upon them. They knew the mettle of Captain Phips. In a minute more cannon-balls might be ploughing deadly gaps through their midst. They dared not fly; they dared not fight. Panic fear took possession of them. They fell upon their knees in a body, begged the captain not to fire, and vowed that they would rather live and die with him than any man in the world. All they had found fault with was that he would not turn pirate; otherwise he was the man of their hearts.
The captain was stern; they were humble and beseeching. In the end he made them deliver up their arms, and then permitted them to come on board, a thoroughly quelled body of mutineers. But Captain Phips knew better than to trust these men a third time. The moment the ship was in sailing trim he hoisted anchor and sailed for Jamaica, where he turned the whole crew, except the few faithful ones, adrift, and shipped another crew, smaller, but, as he hoped, more trustworthy.
The treasure-ship still drew him like a magnet. He had not begun to think of giving up the search. Discouragement, failure, mutiny, were to him but incidents. The silver was there, somewhere, and have it he would, if perseverance would avail. From Jamaica he sailed to Hispaniola. There his fluent persuasiveness came again into play. He met a very old man, Spaniard or Portuguese, who was said to know where the ship lay, and "by the policy of his address" wormed from him some further information about the treasure-ship. The old man told him that it had been wrecked on a reef of shoals a few leagues from Hispaniola, and just north of Port de la Plata, which place got its name from the landing there of a boat-load of sailors with plate saved from the sinking vessel. Phips proceeded thither and searched narrowly, but without avail. The sea held its treasures well. The charmed spot was not to be found. The new crew, also, seemed growing mutinous. Phips had had enough of mutiny. He hoisted sail and made the best of his way back to England.
Here trouble and annoyance awaited him. He found powerful enemies. Doubtless ridicule also met his projects. To plough the bottom of the Atlantic, in search of a ship that had gone down fifty years before, certainly seemed to yield fair food for mirth. Yet the polite behavior, the plausible speech, the enthusiasm and energy of the man had their effect. He won friends among the higher nobility. The story of the mutiny and of its bold suppression had also its effect. A man who could attack a horde of armed mutineers with his bare fists, a man so ready and resolute in time of danger, so unflinchingly persevering in time of discouragement, was the man to succeed if success were possible. Finally, the Duke of Albemarle and some others agreed to supply funds for the expedition, and Captain Phips in no long time had another ship under his feet, and was once more upon the seas.
His ship was now accompanied by a tender. He had contrived many instruments to aid him in his search. It is said that he invented the diving-bell. There was certainly one used by him, but it may have been an old device, improved by his Yankee ingenuity.
Port de la Plata was reached in due time, the year being 1684 or 1685. Here Phips had a large canoe or periago made, fitted for eight or ten oars. It was hollowed out from the trunk of a cotton-tree, he using "his own hands and adze" in the work, enduring much hardship, and "lying abroad in the woods many nights together."
The shoals where search was to be made were known by the name of the "Boilers." They lay only two or three feet below the surface, yet their sloping sides were so steep that, says one author, "a ship striking on them would immediately sink down, who could say how many fathom, into the ocean?"
The tender and the periago were anchored near these dangerous shoals, and the work went on from them. Days passed, still of fruitless labor. The men, as they said, could make nothing of all their "peeping among the Boilers," Fortunately they had calm weather and a quiet sea, and could all day long pursue their labors around and among the shoals.
A day came in which one of them, looking far down into the smooth water, saw what is known as a sea-feather, one of the attractive products of those gardens of the seas, growing out of what seemed a rock below him. He turned to an Indian diver, and asked him to dive down and bring it up.