At this juncture Ella appeared on deck, wonderfully surprised, of course, at all she saw, and I was at once called on to explain. I did so, briefly narrating the circumstances of Bob’s fortunate discovery of the arrival of the Albatross at the island, of his having watched the crew all the previous day, of our plan, and of the manner in which it had been carried out, pointing to the burning brig as the issue of it all.
“Oh! Harry,” exclaimed she, bursting into tears, “how could you run such a fearful risk! Only fancy, you two men venturing into the very centre of these dreadful people’s camp, and without arms too! Why what would have become of you if you had been taken? Really, I could almost find it in my heart to be downright angry with you both. I cannot understand men a bit. They seem—some of them—to have been born absolutely devoid of the faculty of perception of danger, even when it is staring them in the face; and accordingly they rush into the midst of all sorts of perils, seemingly with a happy unconsciousness that they are doing so, and with a heedlessness as to consequences which is perfectly bewildering. No—now do not try to coax me, Harry, for I really am seriously angry with you. And to think, too, of your being up all night, weak as you are! I am surprised that you are not ill again. Oh, Harry” (with fresh sobs), “how thankful I am that you are safe, and that I did not know anything of this until now! And do not look grieved, darling; I did not mean what I said. It was very naughty of me, I know, but I was frightened at the thought of the risks you have run, and how all this might have ended. Oh, mercy! what is that?”
A shock, as if the cutter had struck upon a rock—a dull, heavy boom—and the fragments of the burning brig were scattered far and wide, to come pelting down again the next minute in a perfect shower of charred and splintered wood, spars, ropes, and the thousand-and-one other matters usually found on board a ship. The brig’s powder magazine had blown up. A heavy cloud of dark smoke marked the spot where the explosion had taken place; and when it drifted away before the fresh morning breeze, one or two half-burnt timbers floating on the water were all that remained of the Albatross.
“Ah!” exclaimed Bob, who was busy coiling down the various halliards, etc., “I’ve been expectin’ that any time this past half-hour, and I only wonder it didn’t happen afore. Well, that’s a good endin’ to a good job well begun, and I reckon them chaps ashore there may’s well make up their minds to stay where they be for the rest of their nat’ral lives, for they’ve neither ship nor boats, nor stuff to build ’em with either. I don’t reckon there’s many trees on yon island that’d be much use in a ship-buildin’ yard.”
“No, said I. I think we may safely consider that their career of crime and bloodshed is put an effectual stop to, for some time at least; unless, indeed, some unfortunate ship should come to the island, in which case they would have her to a certainty.”
“Ay,” returned Bob, “but that’s a very onlikely chance. These here islands don’t lie in the road to nowhere, and it may be years afore they sets eyes on a sail again after they loses sight of that good-lookin’ topsail of ourn. I s’pose they won’t starve there, will they, lad?”
“No,” said I, “there is very little fear of that. The island yields an abundance of fruit, as you know, amply sufficient for all their requirements; and they have their punt, which will serve them to go fishing on the lagoon, though she is too small for any of them to venture to leave the island in her. So, on the whole, I think they are quite as well off as they deserve.”
We were by this time clear of the reef and in open water, so I went down to breakfast, leaving Bob at the tiller. Ella was very penitent for her late “naughtiness”, as she termed it, and was so lavish with her endearments, to make up for it, that I would very willingly have experienced such a “thunder-squall” every day of my life to have the air cleared afterwards in so agreeable a manner.
When I returned to the deck, Bob asked me, previous to his going below to get his breakfast, what I intended to do with the boats and the canoe, all of which were in tow. I had not thought very much about it, but now that the question was put, I decided to retain the canoe altogether. She was so small and so light that I thought we could easily carry her on deck in anything but very bad weather, and, ordinarily, she would tow very comfortably astern. If we could contrive to keep her, I thought, she would frequently save wear and tear in our tube-boat; and where a passage of a short distance across the calm surface of a lagoon, from the cutter to the shore, was all that was required, she would answer the purpose perfectly well. As to the boats of the Albatross, I decided to tow them fairly out of sight of the island, and then abandon them; thus effectually precluding the possibility of their getting back into their owners’ hands, the prevailing winds there being from about south-east, which would drive the boats ever farther and farther from the island. We accordingly retained them in tow for the remainder of that day and all next night, and cast them adrift on the following morning.
We were now within two days’ easy sail of the spot which had been indicated to me as the position of the treasure-island and our thoughts naturally reverted to the question as to whether the treasure really existed or not; Bob feeling the utmost confidence that it would be found precisely as the dying Spaniard had described it, whilst I began to entertain grave doubts as to our success. The important conversation in which the existence and position of the treasure were revealed was recalled, almost word for word, and the notes which I had made at the time were frequently referred to: and certainly everything seemed to abundantly justify Bob’s confidence, whilst I was quite unable to point to a single word or circumstance tending to confirm my doubts; the fact is, I suppose, that as we drew nearer to our goal, and began to realise more fully the vast influence which the possession of the treasure would exercise upon our future, I must have been influenced by a feeling that it was “too good to be true.” There was so very decided an infusion of the romantic element into everything connected with the affair, that my matter-of-fact mind refused to accept the possibility that there might be truth in it after all. I was young then, but I have now lived long enough and seen enough of the world to feel convinced that romance enters so largely into the ordinary circumstances of life, that any middle-aged man might easily furnish, from his own experience, materials for half-a-dozen sensation novels and I believe that no novel that was ever written is half as sensational as would be a minute and strictly true record of the incidents marking the life of such a man. I have in my mind at this moment a man whose life and occupation has for many years been apparently of the dullest and most commonplace description. To every one but myself he has appeared to be simply a thorough business-man, punctual to the minute—almost to the second—methodical, accurate, without a thought, apparently, for anything but business; his very conversation being brilliant only on matters connected with business; he is, in short, with those who know him pretty well, and even with his own kith and kin, about the very last man who would ever be supposed to know anything about romance, beyond its name. Yet circumstances have revealed to me, beyond all possibility of cavil or doubt, that this man has been the hero of a romance, so thrilling, so startling, so very extraordinary in all its phases, that it would indubitably make the fortune of the great sensation novelist of the day forthwith, if that gentleman’s fortune be not already made.