“And how comes it, then, that you are here and the ship gone?”
“That is the deviltry that I am coming to. A week ago yesterday we had everything ready. I had sent aboard half a dozen fellows who were ready for anything that would put a handful of doubloons in their pockets. Jack told the old crew that you had ordered these men shipped to help in loading copper at Coquimbo, and they were pleased at the prospect of more help in the work. Jack and I were ashore for the last time, waiting for night to come, so that we could cut the cable and run. We had both taken our share of grog, but Jack had taken a deal less than I. That I had noticed, and it ought to have made me suspicious. At eleven o’clock we started from the pulqueria for the beach; but as I turned the first corner, Jack dropped a bit behind, and at the same moment I felt his knife running in between my ribs, and as I turned he gave me this slash over the head, and I fell in the street with a shout of ‘Murder!’
“The patrol came along and Jack scuttled off! Well, sir, I was carried to the hospital, where I have been ever since, and I had a narrow squeak for it; but I pulled through at last, and now I am ready to pilot you to Amatavi Island, as soon as you can get something to go in, to hunt up your ship!”
The fellow’s story carried conviction in the telling; it was verified by the police, so far as they were concerned, and by old Francisco, in whose pulqueria all the nefarious business had been planned.
My good friend Altimara, to whom I went with the strange tale, was now of the greatest assistance in various ways. He found, at my suggestion, a fast-sailing schooner with a good armament, that had lately returned to Valparaiso from a smuggling voyage up the coast. She could be chartered just as she was, manned and all ready for sea, excepting her stores.
I made the round of my customers; and after stating my desperate case, they at once settled their various bills for the goods they had purchased, paying me in silver, in all nearly sixty thousand dollars. I then laid in a sufficient supply of stores for a voyage of four months; and obtaining the necessary papers for my vessel from the government officials, who were all very sympathetic, I took Charlie on board as pilot, and sailed from Valparaiso with a fair wind, on the 6th of May, in search of my runaway ship.
I found my schooner all that I could have wished: she was very fast and easily handled; and the crew, which was largely made up of runaway men-of-war’s men, were familiar with the use of the great guns and well drilled in small arms.
I explained to them the object of our voyage and what I hoped and expected to accomplish, and assured them that if we succeeded in overhauling and capturing the Mystic, they should receive one hundred dollars each as prize money, in addition to their wages. But I told them at the same time that very possibly we might have a sharp fight, for I knew Mr. Robinson was a desperate man and had everything at stake.
The men cheered at the end of my speech, and promised to go wherever I led them, and I saw that they meant what they said.
From the description Charlie gave of the island where he said Robinson had intended taking the Mystic, I found that it laid in latitude 2° 21′ S., longitude 146° 04′ E., and that it was doubtless one of the Admiralty Islands, which were little known to navigators at that time.