The men speedily hoisted the cases out of the boat. Yan Bol was conspicuously forward and energetic in the hand he gave. I stood near, and heard him say, “I vhas pleased mit der Spaniards for leaving dis money. Dere vhas house, vife, beer, bipes, mit songs und dances in dese cases. Cott, vhat a veight! I likes to find more ships in a hole. Vhat drinks, vhat larks in von case only.”
The sailors rumbled with laughter at the fellow, and some of the Englishmen eyed me askant to guess my mind. I was willing, however, that Bol should run on. Greaves was near, and able to hear and judge for himself. When the last case was out of the boat I walked aft.
Greaves said, “Send your boat’s crew to dinner, and let others take their place for the next boat.”
“With your leave, sir, I’ll keep the men I have just returned with. They know the ropes and have nothing to learn.”
“Be it so. Send the crew to dinner, but let them bear a hand; and you can make a meal off this tray here.”
There was food in plenty, and wine. Having told the boat’s crew to go to their dinner, I sat down with Greaves, and ate and drank. The weather continued extraordinarily beautiful, but the wind was failing, long glassy lines of calm were already snaking along the surface of the sea, and it was fiercely hot. The horizon swam in a film; you could have seen ten miles in the morning, and not five miles now from the deck. No sights had been taken; no sights were needed when there was an island, whose situation had been accurately observed, close alongside.
“We shall have the dollars aboard by four?” said Greaves.
“Easily, sir.”
“Do you believe in the dollars now, Fielding?” said he, with a smile.
I answered, “Yes,” coloring, and asked him how he felt.