I allowed the boat’s crew a quarter of an hour for their dinner, then summoned them; and, not to repeat the story of our first visit, by something after three o’clock that afternoon, the weather still holding marvelously radiant and all the wind gone, I had tallied the last of the cases of dollars over the side of the Black Watch, along with some crates of cocoa; but the four casks of tortoise shell I had been unable to meet with. Whether they had been omitted, or stowed in some secret place, I know not. Then, for an hour, I was busy in superintending the stowage of the cases of dollars in the brig’s lazarette. While I was thus occupied, Yan Bol, with a few seamen, was sent by the captain in the longboat to procure fresh water and fill up with terrapin and all else catchable that was good for the saucepan. The Dutch boatswain made two journeys before I was done, and was gone ashore again for more water and turtle when I arrived on deck after a wash and a clean-up. I reported the dollars stowed to the captain.
“Ninety-eight thousand pounds,” said he. “It is worth the venture, I think.”
“I can scarcely credit the reality now it has happened and all’s well,” said I.
“There are many men,” said he, “who would be willing to be pressed, run-down, half-drowned, and picked up for six thousand pounds.”
“Ay, indeed,” said I; “and when I take up that money, Galloon, how much of it is to be your share, dear doggie?”
“The Spanish lady sleeps well.”
“After four days of that island!” said I.
“What is to be done with her? I certainly cannot land her in a Spanish port. It will end, I believe, in our carrying her to England. I intend to court no unnecessary risks, and I should be courting a very unnecessary risk by looking close enough into a port to land her. No; she will sail with us to England. I hope she is amiable. I scarcely noticed that she was good-looking. I am no ladies’ man—I do not care for women; and the deuce of it is, neither you nor I speak Spanish.”
“She is a woman of degree,” said I; “has fine manners, fine rings, and beautiful hands.”
“You may have found a wife as well as a fortune in these seas, Fielding.”