List, Ye Landsmen! A Romance of Incident

by William Clark Russell

Little wonder that my heart at this time felt light, that my spirits sometimes danced. Let me but bring the brig to a safe anchorage off Deal, and I might hope—failing frigates and presses—that my business was done. I should have taken a long farewell of the sea. I should be a rich man; for to me in those days, six thousand pounds of English money was a great sum—aye, beyond my utmost hopes by one cipher at least. Yes; and even had I dreamt of six hundred pounds, how was I to earn it? Never could I have saved so much money out of the slender wage of the ocean. Why, let me even knock off another cipher, and put the figure at sixty pounds. Do many Jacks, after years of bitter toil, limp ashore—curved in the back, one-eyed, maybe, half-fingerless, rotted to their marrow with the beastly food, the stinking water of the jolly life of the deep, rotted to the soul by nameless sins and the slum-and-alley seductions of a hundred ports—are there many Jacks, I ask, whose savings, after years of labor, amount to sixty pounds?

There is an irony of circumstance at sea as there is ashore; but at sea this sort of irony is bitterer than ashore, because nothing can happen at sea that lacks a coloring, more or less defined, of the fearful significance of life or death.

In proof whereof list, ye landsmen, to what I am about to relate.

You will suppose that so shrewd, intelligent, and diligent a lady as the Señorita Aurora would not need to be thrown much in the company of an Englishman, would not need to be long instructed by him, would not need to spend many hours in studying for herself, before she acquired a very respectable knowledge of the English tongue. And let me tell you that, by this time, though she spoke slowly, with many pauses, though she wanted many words, she was already become a very good listener when I discoursed in my own speech. How long should it take an intelligent Spanish lady to learn English—to talk it freely and correctly? I don’t know. My lady Aurora began (in questions) the study of the language, as you may remember, in the beginning of January; and now, in these early days of March, she understood me when I talked to her; when I talked to her slowly and pronounced my words carefully, and when I helped her with a sign or a Spanish word here and there.

I’ll call the date the 12th of March: it was a Friday; I sat at dinner with Madam Aurora. Dinner!—yet I must give even that pleasant name to the midday repast, to the piece of beef in whose mahogany texture lurked scurvy enough to lay low a watch, to the boiled duff and the several messes of the caboose. But then our stock of poultry was growing small; we had need to be frugal; we were in the unhappy condition of not daring, or not choosing if you will, to look into a port for the replenishment of coops and casks.

I sat with her ladyship, and we ate of the yield of the Black Watch’s cabin pantry. The day was fine; the sun sparkled white as silver upon the skylight. The royal yards were aloft, and the brig was sailing with her larboard topmast studding sail out, making very little noise as she went, so that talking was easy.

Times had been when Miss Aurora questioned me about the dollars in the lazarette. She had asked me for the name of the ship they came from: I had answered her, La Perfecta Casada. She had asked me for the story of Greaves’ discovery, and by our methods of communication I had spun her the yarn. When I had spun her the yarn, she informed me that she had heard of the loss of a Spanish ship called La Perfecta Casada, with all hands, as it was supposed, but this said, the subject dropped, and we rarely afterward mentioned the matter of the treasure in the hold.

Now, while we were at dinner this day, we talked of her shipwreck. She said there had been a quantity of antique valuable furniture belonging to her mother on board; otherwise, saving clothes and jewelry, the Señora de la Cueva had embarked no property in the ship. She spoke of the captain and officers of the vessel. The captain was a worthless seaman, a timid, ill-tempered, swearing fellow, a native of the Manillas. We drifted from this subject of the wreck to La Perfecta Casada. Our conversation was animated, despite the frequent interruption of gesticulations, the many hindrances of words unintelligible through their pronunciation, the frequent pausings for the needful term. She requested me to describe the cave in which the Casada lay. I fetched paper and pencil, and drew it for her as best I could. Then she asked me the value of the treasure, and I told her very honestly that it rose to above half a million of dollars of the currency of her nation.

“Ave Maria!” cried she, “what wealth to discover in a cave. It is like a tale told by the Arabs. Santa Maria Purissima! What a treasure for a mariner of the orthodox faith to dedicate to the Church! You will receive a handsome portion, I trust?”

“I will receive a share,” said I.