“Ah, that’s just what I wants to find out,” answered Joe. “They won’t say anything to me about it, but just sits whisperin’ with their heads together away for’ard in the far end of the fo’c’s’le, and I notices as it’s always the cook as has most to say. He and Rogers seems to be the leadin’ spirits in the job, whatever it is.”
“So your little scheme of yesterday has borne no fruit, thus far?” I suggested.
“Well, not much,” said Joe. “But then, I don’t expect ’em to take me into their secrets right off the reel, the first time that I misbehave myself. But I believe they’ll have a try to get me in with ’em before they tries to carry out their plans. Last night, when I was sittin’ on my chest, grumblin’ and growlin’ at the way I’d been treated durin’ the day,”—here Joe laughed softly as the peculiar humour of the situation seemed to present itself to him—“the cook wanted to know whether I wouldn’t rather be a rich man than have to go to sea for the rest of my days; but Rogers stopped him with a look, and said, ‘Now, doctor, you leave Joe alone, and don’t go puttin’ no nonsensical notions into his head. You leave him to me; perhaps I may have somethin’ to say to him myself by-and-by, and I don’t want nobody to interfere at all in this here matter.’ And that’s how the thing stands at present.”
“Very well,” said I. “You have told me enough to satisfy me that your conjectures are by no means as groundless as I supposed them to be, and you must do your best, Joe, to find out what you can. But you will have to be very careful what you are about: it is clear enough that, if they meditate treachery of any kind, they are not yet at all disposed to trust you; and if they at all contemplate the possibility of winning you over to join them, they will set all manner of traps for you, and test you in every conceivable way before making up their minds to trust you.”
“Yes,” assented Joe, “I expects they will. But I’m all ready for ’em, whenever they likes; I’ve got my course all marked out, clear and straight; and, if Rogers or any of the others comes soundin’ me, they’ll be surprised to find what a downright bad character I am, and how ready I am to take a hand in any mischief that’s brewin’.”
Chapter Fourteen.
Plot and Counterplot.
This secret conversation between Joe and myself—secret by reason of the intense darkness of the night, and by the precautions I had deemed it expedient to take, at an early stage of the conversation, to conceal my precise whereabouts from any prying eyes among the starboard watch—at first produced within me a feeling of the keenest uneasiness and anxiety. For Joe’s revelation as to the discovery by the late steward of my secret relating to the concealed treasure furnished me with what had previously been lacking, namely, a motive for that secret plotting of the existence of which Joe was so firmly convinced. The story to which I had that night listened left no room for doubt in my mind that my own want of caution and the late steward’s inquisitive propensities had placed within the knowledge of the latter the two important facts that I possessed the secret of a concealed treasure, and that it was my intention, on leaving Sydney, to proceed in search of it. Moreover, it was clear enough that the fellow had no sooner acquired this knowledge than he concocted a plan for the eventual acquisition of the treasure, and made some effort to secure the assistance of the crew in the carrying out of this plan, whatever it might happen to have been. Failing in this, might he not, out of sheer malice, have communicated the secret to some one else—our present cook, for instance—and instigated the man to take some such steps as himself had contemplated? Such a proceeding would at once account satisfactorily for the curious fact that I had succeeded in obtaining a crew when no other shipmaster within the port could do so. The only weak element of such a supposition consisted in my inability to reconcile myself to the belief that such a man as our late steward would ever, under any provocation, be weak enough to part with a secret that might, even under the most unlikely combination of circumstances and in the most distant future, possibly be of some advantage to himself. Yet this man, Martin, whose life I had saved, and who had impressed me as being a thoroughly honest, straightforward, trustworthy fellow, roundly asserted that something of a secret and mysterious character was going on among the newly shipped men—something from which he, on account of his assumed integrity, had been quietly yet consistently excluded; and he had heard the word “treasure” mentioned by these presumable conspirators. Then I argued with myself that, after all, when one came to reflect upon it, the exclusive ways of these ex-gold-miners and the mere mention of the word “treasure” seemed rather slender threads from which to weave so portentous a suspicion as that which Joe’s communication had suggested. For aught that I knew, the late steward’s discourses upon the subject of the treasure might have been of such a character as to suggest to the minds of his hearers an absurdly exaggerated idea of its value, leaving upon honest Joe’s mind the impression that it must be fabulously rich, and altogether the kind of thing to obtain possession of which men would hesitate at no crime, however monstrous. And, having had experience of one attempt to gain possession of it by means of treachery, was it not natural that the simple fellow, discovering, or believing that he had discovered, something in the nature of a secret understanding among his shipmates, should at once leap to the conclusion that it was nothing less than a second attempt upon the treasure that was being planned? As to the cook’s inquiry whether Joe would not rather be a rich man than be obliged to follow the sea for the remainder of his life, I thought nothing of that; sailors—like everybody else—are possessed of a rooted conviction that wealth is the panacea of all evils. By the time that I had reached this point in my mental argument it was eight bells, and, Forbes coming on deck to relieve me, I went to my cabin more than half convinced that Joe had, after all, discovered a mare’s nest; and having thus argued myself into a more comfortable frame of mind, I lay down and slept soundly until I was called by the steward at my usual hour of rising.