Such was the strange beginning of a friendship that endured for near forty years. Though he was by so much my elder, he dealt with me as though I had been his brother. We roamed the shore together, together fished and snared animals in the woods, and would have shared the same lodging but that I preferred to keep my little hut on the shore, where I had fresher air and was within close call of any ship that should chance to pass in the night. Little by little I pieced together the story of the rock-girt galleon and of Captain Q. He could not talk in orderly sequence for long together, but whatsoever the subject of our discourse, he would break off to prattle of his childhood in the little village of Quimperlé, and of his youth and manhood to the time when destiny brought him to Tortuga. He was a Huguenot, and had fought under Condé at St. Denis, and under Admiral Coligny at Jarnac. After the dread day of St. Bartholomew he fled from France, and became a corsair in his own vessel, haunting the coasts of the Spanish Main. One day he fell in with the galleon San Felipe, and took it after a long fight. His own ship being small, he put his crew aboard the galleon, and the crew and company of the galleon upon his ship, and then sailed away for Tortuga, designing to land there and divide the spoil. And his little vessel, with the Spaniards on board, had gone down before his very eyes, having received sore damage in the action.
Before the San Felipe made Tortuga she was caught in a great storm, which swept upon her suddenly and sent her masts by the board. During a lull she was warped into a cove on the Tortuga coast, and there refitted. Then, as she was being towed out, all hands busy in the work, the sea was cast up by a great earthquake; the cliffs on either hand were upheaved and flung sheer upon the vessel, killing outright every man upon it and in the boats save only the Captain and two or three beside. The Captain was struck on the head by a fragment of rock, and thrown senseless to the deck. (And here, as he told the story, he lifted his long, grizzling locks and showed a great seam upon his skull.) When he came to himself all was at first mere blankness to him. He got upon his feet, lost in amaze to behold the galleon encompassed by a vault of rock, and tended the few men that had survived the cataclysm, but they lingered for a little and then all died, leaving him alone.
Little by little the past came back to him, and he was not aware of any change in himself save that his memory played him tricks. But I perceived that the shock and the blow on the head had done his intellects more harm than he knew. He had long fits of silence, wherein he would sit and gaze vacantly out to sea, or would march with drawn sword into the woodland, seeking an enemy that had come to steal his gold. Other whiles he would weave baskets of grass, humming little songs, or babbling in the manner of children. He never ceased to regard me as one of his whilom crew, and in my pity I said nought to undeceive him.
He knew not how long he had dwelt upon the island. I asked him whether he had been alone all the time, and why he had not discovered himself to the French and English pirates who had doubtless sometimes come ashore.
He smiled cunningly, and said, "Could I trust them? They were not my friends. Say that I told them of the ship, and the great treasure it contained, think you they would not have desired it for their own, and taken it from me, and left me poor? I trusted La Noue" (his thoughts were straying to his youth and the siege of La Rochelle): "all men trusted him. He was saved at Jarnac."
And then he fell a-musing. At another time he told me that he had been minded once to join a party that had landed, telling them nothing, with intent to return at some convenient season for his treasure. But he feared lest during his absence it should be discovered, and he might return only to find that the vessel had been stripped bare. The treasure was the sole thing he clung to; he could not bring himself to part from it even for a day; once a day at the least he descended into the cabin and feasted his eyes on the great store of gold and jewels. He had become a miser. And so he carefully shunned such men as had come ashore; and once he had been near to starving, when a crew encamped beneath the cliff wherein was the entrance to his cavern, and remained there for several days, he not daring to issue forth for food, lest he should be seen.
I marvelled often that the Captain never showed any distrust of me. He took me often into the cabin, and sometimes set me to count the money piece by piece, and to display the jewels on the lids of the chests. Indeed, he took, methought, a childish pleasure in thus exhibiting his wealth, and when the precious things were all set in array before him, he would gaze from them to me with a simple pride and contentation which I found infinitely moving.
II
Thus many days passed. I looked often out to sea for a friendly ship, but none touched on the island, and those that sailed by were Spanish built, and I durst not hail them.
One night a great storm arose. Rain fell in floods, thunder roared all around, the sky was by moments ablaze with lightning such as I had never seen. Driven from my hut, I wended my way toilsomely through the blinding torrents to the cavern, and took shelter for the remainder of the night with Captain Q on board the galleon. Towards morning the fury of the storm abated, but the wind was still high, and when we left our refuge and stood on the cliff, so that the sunbeams might dry our drenched garments, we espied a ship fast on the rocks a little distance from shore. The sea was tempestuous: mighty waves smote and battered upon the vessel, and I perceived very clearly that she was fast going to pieces.