The Cruise of the 'Alerte' / The narrative of a search for treasure on the desert island of Trinidad

by E. F. Knight

The pirate had described a small gully in the middle of this bay, at the foot of which he and his men had erected three cairns, which should serve as landmarks to those who had the clue, and point the way to the treasure.

Mr. P——, and, after him, Mr. A——, had found this gully and the three cairns, just as they had been described. Mr. A——, either for the purpose of putting others off the scent, or in order to discover if anything had been concealed beneath them, blew up these cairns with gun-powder and dug into them, so that now we could only see traces of one of them. He had, however, communicated to me what he understood to be their signification, and how he had been led by them to the first bend in the ravine, at which spot the plunder had been buried under a hollow rock.

We walked up the ravine till we came to a bend, and here, as we had expected, we saw what appeared to be a landslip of red earth, filling up the corner of it, blocking up the mouth of any cave that might exist there, even as Mr. P—— and Mr. A—— had described. And here before us lay a small trench, with a broken earthenware water jar and the remains of a wheel-barrow lying in it—all that remained to show where Mr. A—— had carried on his not very extensive works.

This, therefore, was the spot we had crossed the Atlantic to find. We stood and looked at it in silence for a while. 'What do you think of it?' asked the doctor at last.

It was not an easy question to reply to, for I did not quite know myself what to think of it. I had pictured to myself a very different place. I saw that our work would in one respect be more difficult than I had anticipated, in another respect far more easy. For this landslip was not nearly so extensive as I had understood it to be, and the slopes of the ravine were not of such a character as to render our operations dangerous, or to necessitate any timbering of our shafts or trenches. But, on the other hand, there was a want of definiteness that was disappointing. There were no really sharp bends in the ravine, and there were several landslips. It was impossible to be quite certain of what was meant by 'the first bend;' for there were bends of so insignificant a character that they might easily be overlooked; and we had no knowledge of the number of paces from the cairns to the cavern. Therefore, should we fail to find the treasure at the spot where Mr. A—— commenced to dig, it would be necessary for us to clear the landslip off the face of the cliff for some considerable distance.

Having inspected the scene of Mr. A——'s operations, we set out to explore the ravine carefully, and, bearing in mind what we knew of the pirate's original instructions, we endeavoured to reason out whether this or some other neighbouring bend was the most likely spot. The treasure was lying, or had been lying, very close to us somewhere; of that I felt confident at the time, and I have had no reason for altering my opinion since.

First, we went down the ravine again, and when we reached the bottom of it, where it opens out upon the back of the beach, we observed, what had escaped our notice at first, an extensive excavation in the hard soil—which is not so encumbered with boulders here as it is higher up—a cutting so regular in form and with such perpendicular sides that it was difficult to imagine that it had not been the work of men's hands. This was certainly not one of Mr. A——'s trenches; for to have removed such a quantity of earth and stones would have occupied such a party as he had with him for six months at least.

Was it possible that the American, or some other adventurer, had been here before us and carried away the treasure? We could find no marks of tools or other traces of man in or near this trench, so it was impossible to decide whether it was artificial or natural. Some of us afterwards came to the conclusion that it was most probably the latter, for we came across other cuttings, somewhat similar to this, in other portions of the ravine, which had evidently been produced by the action of water.

Next we went up the gully beyond Mr. A——'s trench, in the hopes of finding water, of which we were beginning to feel the want. There was no running stream here, though it was evident from its formation that the ravine was swept by a mighty torrent after heavy rains. The water that drained into it from the over-hanging mountain was soaked up by the loose red soil that lay between the boulders.

But at last we came to a little hollow at the foot of a rocky step, where was a tiny pool of tepid and muddy water. However, this was all we required, for we could now afford time to survey the scene of our operations more thoroughly, instead of hurrying back, driven by thirst, to our distant water-course.