At any rate, there it was where it ought to be, and I didn’t make any doubt but that it was the island which we had been seeking these long weary months at sea, especially as I recalled the results of the sights which poor Captain Matthews and I had worked out the afternoon before. I felt no little pride in my navigation, by the way. I had told her that I could find it, and I had done so after sailing halfway round the world.
The observation which I had taken then and which I had checked off later, and which Captain Matthews had also checked off by his own shot at the sun, had shown us that we were in about the latitude and longitude of the chart where we might hope to sight land, if the island of our search was not purely an imaginary one. It had not been marked on any chart, to be sure, and I had always felt some doubt about it. The whole story was so strange and unreal, something like a story-teller’s romance, that the longer I sailed on the voyage the less real the whole undertaking seemed. With the passing days and the passing leagues I had changed my once confident opinion.
Yet I knew that these parts of the ocean had not been well charted, they were very infrequently visited, and there might well be islands here as well as in other parts of the South Seas that no one knew anything at all about. I had thus sought to reassure myself, and lo and behold, there it was. I was glad then that I had not spoken of my growing doubts to my lady.
Somehow the sight of that land set my pulses beating. If there was land there, why should not the rest of the story be true, why should there not be treasure?
My confidence came suddenly back to me. Yes, that must be the island and the treasure must be upon it. I had professed to give up all of my share to the crew for her—nevertheless, I was not insensible to its value if it were there, and I made up my mind if human strength, human wisdom, human cunning, and unbounded devotion could work it out, I would outwit the crew and get all of it for her, although I realized that riches would remove her at once further than ever from me.
What of it! I couldn’t be further from her than I was. She had shown me my presumption and rebuked me properly for it, though indeed she had forgiven me. She was born to be rich and happy and if I could make her the one her friends, old and new, would doubtless make her the other. As for me—well, I could go off on some longer cruise even than this and never come back. Nobody would care. I didn’t have much time to think about these things, but the resolution came to my mind then as I set it down here.
The whole crew was on deck. I didn’t see Captain Matthews’ body about, although I looked hastily for it. I learned later that they had tumbled the poor old man overboard after they had knocked him on the head. He had shot a mutineer before the rest killed him, and he, too, had gone into the sea with the same lack of ceremony—murdered and murderer together to wait the final reckoning. Pimball, Glibby, and one or two others of the older seamen were on the quarter-deck, the rest being strung along the lee rail in the waist, staring at the island. Two good hands were at the wheel. The ship was pitching and laboring heavily and it required two men to hold her up to it.
Everything above the topsail yards had been furled, of course, and during the night they had taken a second reef in the topsails. A whole gale was now blowing. The Rose of Devon was a wet ship in a seaway, and she was making heavy weather out of it. Every once in a while a wave would slap her on the weather bow and send a cloud of spray as high as the foreyard, followed by a torrent of water flooding aft. Fortunately it was not cold. We were only a few degrees south from the line so the water was warm and nobody minded an occasional ducking.
I noticed one thing with satisfaction. They had evidently not thought it worth while to break open the arms chest or to force the key from me, which they could easily have done, and therefore none of them was armed. The desirability of getting at the arms had not occurred to them, or else, they being so many, and I but one, they had not thought it worth while. At any rate, save their sheath knives, weapons they had none. Even Captain Matthews’ pistols had been thrown over with the body, in their hasty disposition of it.
“Well,� I began, as I climbed over the hatch combing and turned aft.