Happily for our impatience, matters shortly afterwards improved somewhat, for with the setting of the sun the breeze freshened, and by the end of the second dog-watch we were slashing away to windward at a fine rate, reeling off our eight knots per hour, with the royal stowed. The breeze held all through the night, and when I went on deck at eight o’clock on the following morning the cone that I had viewed through the telescope on the previous evening was only some fifteen or sixteen miles distant, broad on the weather bow, and the arrangement of white rocks on the hill-side—five of them forming a vertical line—which the diary assured me was the distinguishing mark by which I might identify the spot for which I was searching—was clearly visible in the lenses of the telescope, while the mouth of the estuary was about five miles ahead.
“Yes,” I said to Enderby, who was standing beside me as I closed the instrument, “we are all right—so far; the opening to the nor’ard of that curious hummock is the mouth of the estuary into which Barber drifted while in a state of delirium, and the stranded hulk which is supposed to contain the treasure stands, according to him, somewhere on the southern shore. We shall have to make short boards along that southern shore, keeping a sharp look-out for anything in the nature of a stranded craft, anchor abreast it, and go ashore and give it a careful overhaul. Thus far it looks as though there might be some truth in the man’s story. I have no longer any doubt that Barber actually entered that estuary; but I shall still have to see that wreck before I am finally convinced of her existence. Barber was admittedly crazy when he landed yonder, and for all that we know to the contrary he may have remained crazy all the time that he was there, and have imagined the whole thing.”
“Holy Moses!” exclaimed the boatswain, in consternation, “you surely don’t mean to say, sir, that after all this time you still has doubts about the truth of that there treasure yarn, do ye? If we don’t find that wrack there’ll be the dickens to pay in the forecastle. The men—especially them Dagoes—’ll be that disapp’inted that there’s no knowin’ what game they may try to play.”
“How—what do you mean, boatswain?” I demanded sharply.
“Well, Mr Blackburn,” he returned, “what I means is that if we don’t find the wrack the chaps’ll be so disapp’inted that, in their rage, they may rise upon us, the afterguard, and try to take the ship from us.”
“What good would that do them?” I demanded. “If they were to attempt so foolish a thing, and were to succeed, what could they do with the ship? I suppose even they—dolts as they would prove themselves in such an event as you mention—would not be idiots enough to suppose that they could compensate for their disappointment by becoming pirates, eh?”
“Blest if I know what they mightn’t believe if Svorenssen and the two Dutchmen got talkin’ to ’em,” asserted the boatswain. “They’re wonderful talkers, all three of ’em, and they’re everlastin’ly gassin’ about one man bein’ as good as another, and freedom, and the rights of man—you know, sir, the sort of slush that such chaps spouts, and that the shellback swallers as greedily as he would a pannikin of egg-flip!”
“Yes,” I said, “I know. I have heard it all, over and over again, until I have been sick and tired of listening to it; and I have wondered how it is that sensible, level-headed British sailors, even though they may not have had very much education, can swallow and believe in such froth. However, I am very glad that you have mentioned the matter; I will keep my weather eye lifting, and at the very first sign of trouble I’ll act, and to some purpose, too.”
“That’s right, sir; I hopes you will,” approved Enderby. “And if action should ever be needful you may depend upon me and Chips to back ye up. In the meantime I’ll keep my eyes and ears open, too, and let you know directly I sees any signs of trouble brewin’.”
When I descended to the cabin, a few minutes later, in response to the steward’s summons to breakfast, I found Billy Stenson already seated at the table. Billy, I should explain, had, within two days of my arrival aboard the Yorkshire Lass, been promoted from the position of pantry-boy to that of passenger, in virtue of the fact that, through his father’s death, he had become the owner of the brigantine and the inheritor of all prospective profits which might accrue in respect of the present highly speculative voyage; he had also become my pupil, I having undertaken to ground him in the rudiments of navigation.