“I will leave you for a little space,� said I, “and so good-night and God bless you, too.�
When I came back she was snug in her place under the boat. I sat for a long time before the fire, thinking and making plans for our escape. The ship did not give me much concern because I was sure she could not come at us, and in the end she must go away and leave us alone with the treasure, maddening as that might be.
It was a strange fortune that had brought us here. How mysteriously things had worked out. The marriage of her father and mother, the last representatives of the two lines that had come from the same ancestor but had been separated for a hundred and fifty years, which had brought together again the old story of the island, which had been handed down from father to son, and now to only daughter, during those many years, with the tradition explaining it; the indifference with which her father, Sir Geoffrey, had received it, his leaving the parchment and the image to her after his death, the discovery that her mother years before had given her the other part of the chart; the saving of the two thousand pounds by worthy Master Ficklin from the great estate which had been dissipated by her father; my own opportune appearance on the scene—I had returned from an American voyage a short time before his death—her consultation with me; her determination to take the money she had and charter a ship; our securing The Rose of Devon, the enlisting of the crew and the starting off on this wild goose chase, and what had happened since—I recalled them all.
At first believing, I had come latterly to scoff at the whole matter, and had at last laughed to myself at the prospect of finding an island or treasure, and had discredited the story of the old rover buccaneer who had captured the Spanish treasure ship, his own having been sunk in the encounter. Now I could reconstruct the whole scene. He had manned the galleon with his own crew and they had been wrecked on this island reef—if this were the island—but the sea had subsided, and filling the boats with the treasure they had hidden it in a cave on the other side of the wall. The sailors had lived there for some years, but had finally been attacked by some natives, probably from the islands I could see dimly on the horizon, and they had all been killed except Captain Wilberforce, who had feigned madness and become tabooed.
He had escaped in a canoe from the other islands, whither he had been carried, and had fallen in with a Spanish trader, after what voyaging and suffering who could say? He had been trans-shipped from one vessel to another and finally reached his home, a harmless madman on that subject his friends and neighbors and even his family thought, with the parchment, the image, and the tradition which he bequeathed to his two children after he recovered his wits before he died. They had quarreled, married apart, and lost sight of each other. And here we were, a hundred and fifty years or more after the death of the old Elizabethan buccaneer, on his very island. Was the treasure there still, where the tradition said he had placed it? We should see. I now believed that it was.
A long time I sat there until I finally threw myself down and fell fast asleep. I must have slept a long time and soundly for I was wearied. It was she who awakened me. When I opened my eyes and saw her sweet face bending over me and heard her dear voice calling me, I declare I almost felt as if I had died and gone to heaven, and was being welcomed by an angel. But that was only for the moment. I realized everything at once. She herself had but just arisen.
Our first waking thought was for the ship. She was still there in the offing. She had been hove to during the night. I could imagine what fierce debate and wrangling there had been aboard her. The fact that we had landed would convince them that the island contained the treasure for which they had committed murder, and which they could now by no means come at. And that we had escaped them, cozened them, and now could be seen on the beach braving them, in no way diminished their anger. Even if there were no treasure, they would be anxious to get possession of us and wreak their vengeance upon us.
The day that passed was much like the afternoon before. Although we were by this time persuaded that the reef was an absolute protection, a vague possibility that they could devise means to pass it in some way, kept us uneasy on the sand. We must have them under observation. We were eager to explore the beautiful vale enclosed by the huge rampart, but we did not dare to be where we could not watch the ship. We did walk along the shore and ascend the giant stairs in the afternoon. Then while she watched the sea within calling distance of me, I managed to penetrate the jungle with axe in hand, so that finally I made shift to cut down a cocoa palm tree and we gathered as many delicious nuts as we could carry and returned to the shore. And we made plenty of conversation easily during the hours of watching.
On the ship we had conversed mainly about business. Now we had no business and my lady was pleased to look at me in some surprise as I told her what I guessed about the formation of the island and displayed unthinkingly the knowledge of the South Seas and other parts of the globe which I had acquired in my long studying and wide cruising.
“Why, Master Hampdon,� she exclaimed, opening wide her beautiful eyes, after I had explained to her something of the nature of the island and how I thought it had been made and the use of the great quantities of fruits thereof, “you seem to know more than any of the finest gentlemen I have ever been thrown with.�