The Island Treasure

by John C. Hutcheson

Here he remained for over a week, nursing his damaged eyes and general injuries and, no doubt, brooding over the revenge which he contemplated taking at some future period on his late successful antagonist; for, his jealousy had been keenly aroused by the marked partiality Captain Snaggs had shown in favour of Jan Steenbock, although previously he had always chummed with him—and, indeed, even now, in spite of all that had passed, the captain still occasionally invited him to a friendly orgy in the cabin, when both, as usual, of course, got royally drunk together as of yore!

But, since the finding of the golden Madonna and the development of the treasure-hunting craze amongst us, Mr Flinders had begun to come out from his temporary obscurity, while not at first actually pushing himself forward, or taking any prominent part in our daily routine.

This modest diffidence was due to the fact that the men used to make audible remarks in reference to his ‘lovely black eyes,’ but as soon as the tint of these gradually merged from green to yellow and then buck to their normal tone, the first-mate grew bumptious and endeavoured to resume his old position of chief officer in the absence of the skipper, when the latter frequently went off alone, as it was his habit now, in solitary search of the buccaneers’ buried hoard like all the rest of us—notwithstanding that in public he utterly pooh-poohed its problematical existence and urged on the crew in digging out the dock under the ship, so as to get her afloat again, the only good, as he said, that we could expect from the island being the hope of leaving it behind us as quickly as possible.

He was an artful hand, was Captain Snaggs!

He thought that if he dissuaded the men from looking for the treasure he might have the greater chance of coming across it himself.

Such being the case, the skipper would sometimes sneak off in the middle of the day when work used to grow rather slack at our excavating task, in consequence of the greater heat at that time; for, the sea-breeze which we used to have with us from the early morning then gradually died away, while the light airs that blew off the land during the afternoon and night-time did not usually spring up until nearly sunset.

Then it was that Mr Flinders saw his opportunity; and, as regularly as the skipper would disappear in the distance over the lava field fronting the beach, saying, as he always did, that he was going up the cliff on our port hand ‘to see if he could sight any passing vessel’—although the sharpest eyes amongst our lookouts had never yet seen the captain’s lean and angular form on top of the said cliff—so, regularly, did the first-mate stealthily descend the side ladder that led from the poop of the ship down to the beach.

Once arrived here, his delight was to overlook the men as they lazily dug out the concrete-like sand and shingle at the bottom of the trench, filling baskets with the débris below which their fellows above hoisted up none the more energetically; and the first-mate could not help noticing that while Jan Steenbock purred them on now and then for a brief spell, he let them, as a rule, take things easily; at this heated period of the day, for Jan was wise enough to see that by not overworking them then he got more labour out of his gang when the temperature grew cooler, and the men could dig with greater “go.”

For a while, Mr Flinders did not interfere with Jan’s method of procedure, seeing, as any sensible man would, that the second-mate’s plan answered its purpose of getting the most out of the hands without making them grumble unduly at their unwonted task; but, soon his love of carping at others asserted itself, and this feeling, coupled with the desire to assert such petty authority as he still had, overcame his sense of prudence, as well as all recollection of the sharp lesson he had received from Jan not so very long before.

The difference between the skipper and Mr Flinders was, that, although the former was essentially cruel and a bully of the first water, he was yet physically brave and a cute, cautious man, who, when sober, knew how far he might venture in his harsh treatment of those under him; while the first-mate, on the contrary, was an utter coward at heart, and of as malicious and spiteful a disposition as he was fond of tyrannising over such as he thought he could ill-treat with impunity.