There was no moon, and the figures of the various men on watch could be but dimly discerned in the starlight, while the stars themselves, reflected in the dark water, made the placid surface of the bay look as though studded with gems, presenting a most beautiful spectacle.
Roger and Harry, although they would have to work as hard as any of the others next morning, did not feel inclined to sleep, their minds being still in a state of unrest after their two hairbreadth escapes of the day. They therefore remained on deck, walking so softly up and down as to disturb nobody. They had taken but a few turns when their attention was attracted by the sound of low voices, being those of the men constituting the anchor watch. Roger and his friend strolled up to them, and, sitting down on the breech of a gun, prepared to listen to what was evidently a yarn that the old quarter-master, Cary, was spinning.
“Yes,” they heard him say, “this arn’t by no means the furst taime I was in thaise seas.—Good-even to ye, Mr Trevose and Mr Edgwyth!—No; I tall ’ee I was ’ere in the zummer of 1582, just after the taime that that there bloody pirate, José Leirya, was sailing of these vury seas. ’E was a fiend in ’uman shape, if there ever was one; nobody was zafe in anny of the ships ’e tuk. All the men—passengers or zeamen—that ’e captured ’e did bind and put under ’atches in their own ship, aifter ’e ’ad taken all out ’e wanted. Then ’e zet ’em adrift; but afore ’e zet ’em adrift ’e used to fire the ship in zeveral places, and all they poor creatures did roast. The childer ’e took aboard his own ship, keepin’ zum on ’em, and the others ’e zold to the plantations. ’E was a reg’ler devil, ’e was; and they do zay as ’ow ’e be about ’ere even now, although ’e baint been ’eard of for zum taime. And more; they zay that zumwheres near this vury plaace ’o ’as buried tons of goold and silver, precious stones, and all kinds of vallybles; but ’ow far that be true I doen’t knaw. But I do knaw as ’ow I would laike to fall in with ’e with these ’ere ships; we’d taich ’un a vaine lesson, wouldn’t us, laads?”
“Harry, come here a moment,” said Roger, jumping down from the gun at this point in the old man’s narrative, and walking aft. Harry joined him.
“What do you want, old fellow?” said he.
“Well, lad,” remarked his friend, “it has just come to me, somehow, as old Cary mentioned about the treasure of that scoundrel, José Leirya, being buried somewhere about here, that possibly that cipher of ours which we brought from the Gloria del Mundo may refer to that very treasure. You see, Cary says that Leirya hasn’t been heard of for some time. That seems to point either to his death or the disbandment of his crew.
“Now, Cary says he was here in 1582, in the summer, and mentions that that date was just after the time when Leirya was committing such atrocities on the high seas. There is what is presumably a date at the beginning of our document, and that date—if such it is—is 1581, the year before Cary came to these parts. People do not write in cipher save to conceal important information from the eyes of those not in the secret, do they? Very well.
“Now, what would any man wish to conceal by cipher save hidden treasure? There are other things, certainly, he might wish to write about in such a way that the ordinary run of people should not understand the writing, but, to my mind, treasure is the most likely, and the dates coincide very well. Our date is 1581, and Cary says that when he was here in 1582 it was just after the pirate’s depredations; and he has not, apparently, been heard of since. This, I say, points to his death or to the disbandment of his crew; and what more likely than that, before either of these occurrences, he should bury his accumulated booty and locate its position by cipher? I believe most strongly, Harry, that we have in our possession the key to the hiding-place of all the treasure of José Leirya—and he must have accumulated millions of dollars’ worth in his time—if we can but come upon the translation of it. What do you think of it, Harry?”
“Well, Roger, lad,” said Harry, “as you put it, certainly it does seem as though you might be right, and that there may be something in it. We must make another attempt to find the key to the cipher, and when that is found I certainly think we shall obtain something valuable for our trouble, even though it should not be this great treasure of José Leirya. But we had better go below now and try to get some sleep, for we shall have a hard day before us to-morrow.”
They were roused early next morning by the boatswain’s whistle, and, having dressed, came up on deck to find that the boats were just being got over the side again to take away the kedge anchors, by which to haul the ships closer inshore for careening purposes.