“Is it down here I’m wanted, sir?” said the voice of Friend.
“Come along.”
He descended, pulled his cap off, and stared with looks of misgiving and surprise. Peradventure he thought I had a design on his life, and meant to slaughter the crew one by one, courteously inviting them below for that purpose. He was a sailor of a mild cast of face, rather quiet in manner, and had the most civil and least swearing tongue in the brig.
“Sit down. I’ve a message for the crew. I am sick of that huge, bloody-minded Bol’s yaw-yaw-yawling jaw. Your English is mine. You’ll answer some questions, perhaps?”
“I will, sir.”
“The scheme’s this: we said to Amsterdam Island, there unload the silver and bury it. Why Amsterdam Island?”
“Because it’s straight on the road to Australia, uninhabited, and never visited.”
“Why do you not proceed direct to Botany Bay, keeping the money aboard?”
“I’ll tell you,” he answered, putting down his cap, leaning forward, and addressing me with his forefinger on the palm of his left hand. “It’s a matter we’ve argued out for’ads, and we’re all agreed; for this reason. There’ll be nothing easier than to wreck the vessel within a day’s walk of Port Jackson. If we keeps the money aboard we shall be casting it away with the brig. Is the risk of our losing the money along with the brig to be entertained? Why, certainly an’ of course not. The money’s to be hid first. D’ye ask, why we don’t hide it on that part of the coast where we cast the brig away? Because the privacy there aint the privacy of an uninhabited island; there’s savages and settlers a-knocking about; runaway convicks and chaps in sarch of ’em; and no man would reckon the money safe until it was dug up. Next step, then, after losing the brig, will be to tramp it to Port Jackson, shipwrecked men. There Teach has a friend. That friend’s an old pal of Teach’s, and when last heard of was a-doing well. He’ll find us in a schooner or some small vessel, and when we’ve got the money he’ll show us the ropes.”
“What’s Teach’s friend?”