With Cochrane the Dauntless

by G. A. Henty

“The safest plan will be to shoot him at once.”

“No, we cannot do that; we had better tell him frankly tonight that we have moved the gold and buried it, lest the vessel should go to pieces in a storm, that we intend to give it up to any Spanish or Chilian ship that may come here; but that if it is a long time before we are rescued we shall then divide the gold between us, and that he will get a fair share of it.”

“It would be better to shoot him,” the captain said. “You were right, it is evident that he has been thinking over that money, and that as likely as not he has determined to possess the whole of it. However, we shall see how he behaves. I may as well tell him as soon as he arrives; when he sees that we mean fair by him he may possibly be content, at any rate for a time, especially as he must know as well as we do how small is the chance of a ship coming along. We are altogether out of the line of traffic. Ships going round the Horn keep far south of this on their way to China, while those for Peru and Chili keep up the coast; and there is no traffic at all from Peru or Chili to China or India.”

“Now that we have everything we want here, captain, and know that we can hold on for a long time, we ought to begin to think over our plans for the future. If we had tools we could certainly build a craft that would carry us to Chili; but [pg 211]it would be a terrible business to build one with nothing but our swords to cut down trees, hew out the timbers, and shape planks. Still, if there is nothing else to be done we must do that. It is only a matter of time and patience, and we shall find that the hours hang very heavy on our hands when all our necessary work is done here. I should think that we ought to be able to build a craft of twenty tons in a couple of years at the outside; at any rate, I can think of no other plan for getting away.”

“I have been thinking that we might steal a canoe when the natives come here,” the Peruvian said.

“I daresay we might, captain; but if, as is probable, they come in large canoes, three of us would make but very little speed with one of them, and we should be pursued and overtaken in no time. You may be sure that they don’t spend the night up on the hill, and probably when they go up they will leave some of their number on the beach to look after the canoes, and cook. But even if we did get away we could do nothing with such a canoe.”

“I don’t know,” the captain said; “we might land with her on some small island, fit a deep keel on to her, and get up a couple of masts and lug-sails, which, of course, we should make beforehand.”

“Yes, we might do that,” Stephen agreed; “but the difficulty of carrying off the boat would be immense. And besides, she would have to be victualled; we should have to take food and water for a long journey. And to get our barrels filled with fresh water on board would be a long task, and utterly impossible to carry out in the short time that we should have to spare, even if the beach was entirely deserted.”

“Yes, I see it is very difficult,” the captain agreed; “but I would not mind running the risk rather than undertake two years’ hard labour.”

“I would not mind running the risk either, captain, if I saw any probability of success, but I own that this seems an impossibility. However, it may be that sometimes a small party comes alone, and that we could get possession of a canoe of manageable size. At any rate, we may as well prepare for such a chance before setting to work to build. We have plenty of canvas from the fore-topgallant sail and head-sails of the brig, and can make a couple of lug-sails fit for a large canoe and a couple for a smaller one, and get the spars ready; that would not take us a great deal of time, and if a bit of luck does fall in our way we should be ready to avail ourselves of it. That fellow has swam ashore now, so we had better be going back to the hut.”