There the booty was carried ashore and buried until such time as these villains could safely plan distribution and escape. Wisely preferring to stay at sea, Captain Thompson joined the crew of a well-known pirate, Benito Bonito, who also had bloodied his hands with this Spanish treasure. He had captured a rich galleon off the coast of Peru and two other vessels bearing riches sent from Lima. On Cocos Island, at the advice of Captain Thompson, he buried some of his treasure, in a sandstone cave in the face of a cliff. Then he laid kegs of powder upon a ledge close by and blew great fragments of the cliff to cover the cave. In another excavation he placed gold ingots, seven hundred and thirty-three of them. They were ten inches long and four inches wide and three inches thick. With them were twoscore gold-hilted swords inlaid with jewels.
The records of the British Admiralty show that Benito Bonito’s ship was captured by H.M.S. Espiègle which was cruising in the Pacific. Rather than be hanged in chains, this affluent pirate gallantly blew out his brains. At this time Captain Thompson was no longer sailing in company with him and so saved his own wicked skin. One rumor had it that he was garroted in Havana, under another name, with eleven of his old crew of the brig Mary Dear. Other curious stories indicated that he flitted in obscurity from port to port, in mortal terror of Spanish vengeance and never daring to disclose the secret of Cocos Island. . .
CHAPTER XII
RICARDO WRITES A LETTER
Such was the narrative as old Ramon Bazán poured it forth with various impassioned digressions which included cursing the souls of Captain Thompson and Benito Bonito. Excitement made him pepper it with Spanish phrases that had to be translated. The effort sorely taxed his vitality. As Richard Cary said to himself, it was like a boiling kettle. The lid had blown off.
Artfully the climax had been withheld. With the gloating affection of a miser in a melodrama, Señor Bazán spread his creased, soiled document upon the desk. He guarded it with both hands as if Cary might snatch it and bolt for the street. A chart, as the young man had anticipated—a ragged island roughly sketched—the depths of water marked in fathoms—shore elevations shown by fuzzy scratches like caterpillars—sundry crosses and arrows and notations in figures. Here and there the penmanship was almost illegible. Time had faded the ink. Dirt had smudged the sheet of yellowed paper ripped out of some old canvas-backed log-book which might have belonged in the doomed Mary Dear. Ramon Bazán poised a skinny finger over a symbol inked between two hills and piped exultantly:
“Six million dollars in gold and silver and jewels, Ricardo. And here is the cave where Benito Bonito hid the ingots.”
Cary picked up a reading-glass and studied the sheet of paper with the eye of a professional navigator. The chart was the handiwork of a seaman, this he speedily concluded. The compass bearings were properly marked, the anchorage for a vessel noted with particular care, and a channel between the reefs indicated by heavier lines of a pen. The rest of the chart was cryptic, impossible to make head or tail of without prolonged examination. It was interesting but not convincing to Richard Cary who had heard of similar treasure charts. Seafaring men gossiped about them. They turned up every now and again, in the possession of credulous dreamers who swore them to be authentic.
There were excellent reasons, however, for avoiding skepticism in discussing this prodigious marvel with Señor Bazán. Here was Richard Cary’s chance to put the walls of Cartagena behind him, his one tangible hope of salvation. And he was not a man to hang back from seeking Spanish treasure as his next gamble with destiny.
