I observed that his hand was trembling violently as I took the volume from him.
‘I swear,’ I said, ‘to keep secret from all mortal persons in this world, saving Miss Temple, whatever it is your intention now to tell me. So help me God,’ and I put the book to my lips. ‘That oath excludes your crew,’ I added, ‘and I hope you’re satisfied?’
His face took a little complexion of life, and he almost smiled.
‘It’ll do—oh yes, it’ll do,’ he exclaimed. ‘I knew I could count upon you. Now then for it.’
He resumed his seat, and leaning towards me with his unwinking eyes fixed upon my face as usual, he proceeded thus.
CHAPTER XXX
THE CAPTAIN MAKES A PROPOSAL
‘Mr. Ruddiman and I got ashore and walked a little way up the beach, to see what sort of spot we had been cast away on. It was a small island, betwixt two and three miles long, and about a mile wide in the middle of it. There were no natives to be seen. We might be sure that it was uninhabited. There was nothing to eat upon it, and though we spent the hours till it came on dark in searching for fresh water, we found none. This made us resolve to land all we could out of the brigantine when daylight should arrive. The weather cleared at midnight, the stars shone, and the sea smoothed down with a light swell from the north-west, which the trend of the reef shouldered off and left the water about the stranded craft calm. As soon as daylight came we got aboard, and rigged a whip on the fore-yardarm, and by noon we had landed provisions enough, along with fresh water and wines and spirits in jars, to last us two men for three months; but that didn’t satisfy us. There was no other land in sight all round the horizon; we were without a boat; and though, if the vessel broke up, we had made up our minds to turn to and save as much of her as we could handle that might wash ashore, so as to have the materials for a raft at hand if it should come to it, we hadn’t the heart to talk of such a thing then, in the middle of that wide ocean, with such a sun as was shining over our heads all day, and the sure chance of the first of any squall or bit of dirty weather that might come along adrowning of us. So we continued to break out all we could come at. We worked our way out of the hold into the lazarette, and after we had made a trifle of clearance there, we came across three chests heavily padlocked and clamped with iron. “What’s here?” says Mr. Ruddiman. “If these ain’t treasure-chests like to what the Spanish marchants sends away gold in along the coast my eyes ain’t mates,” he says. He went away to the carpenter’s chest, and returned with a crow and a big hammer, and let fly at one of the padlocks, and struck a staple off short. We lifted the lid, and found the chest full of Spanish pieces of gold. The other two was the same, full up with minted gold; and we reckoned that in all three chests there couldn’t be less in the value of English money than a hundred and eighty to two hundred thousand pounds! It wasn’t to be handled in the chests; so we made parcels of it in canvas wrappers; and by the time the dusk drew down, we had landed every farden of it.’
Once more he broke off and went to the drawer. I watched him with profound anxiety, incapable of imagining what he was about to produce, and collecting all my faculties, so to speak, ready for whatever was to come. He took from the drawer, however, nothing more alarming than a piece of folded parchment, round which some green tape was tied. This he opened with trembling hands, smoothed out the sheet of parchment upon the table, and invited me to approach. The outline, formed of thick strokes of ink, represented an island. Its shape had something of the look of a bottle with the neck of it broken away. It lay due north and south according to the points of the compass marked by hand upon the parchment; and towards the north end of it, on the eastern side, there was a somewhat spacious indent, signifying, as I supposed, a lagoon. Over the face of this outline were a number of crosses irregularly dotted about to express vegetation. In the centre of the lagoon was a black spot like a little blot of ink, with an arrow pointing from it to another little blot in the heart of the island bearing due east from the mark in the indent or lagoon. In the corner of the sheet of parchment were written in a bold hand the figures, Long. 120° 3′ W.; Lat. 33° 6′ S.
‘This,’ said he, in a voice vibratory with excitement and emotion, ‘is the island.’ I inclined my head. ‘You see how it lies, sir,’ he continued, pointing with a shaking forefinger to the latitude and longitude of the place in the corner. ‘Easter Island bears due north-east from it. That will be the nearest land. Supposing you start from Valparaiso, a due west-by-south course would run you stem on to the reef.’
I waited for him to proceed. He drew away by a step, that he might keep his eyes upon my face, whilst he continued to hold his trembling forefinger pressed down upon his little chart.