The Death Ship: A Strange Story, Vol. 2 (of 3)

by William Clark Russell

"Much more!" she replied. Then turning to Vanderdecken, who had fixed his eyes on me without moving his head, she said, "I am telling Mr. Fenton that these chests represent but a handful of the treasure in this ship."

"I am dazzled by what I see, mynheer, said I, speaking whilst Prins raised the trays disclosing many hundreds of guineas' worth of ornaments and stones. "Had I but the value of one of these trays alone this should be my last voyage."

"Ay," said he, "there is much that is beautiful here. Much that will yield good sums. But a large number of the articles in that chest belong to a merchant; there are likewise consignments, and my own share is but a speculation."

The other chest had but one tray, in which lay many golden crucifixes of different sizes, goblets, flagons, candlesticks, all gold, whilst beneath were numbers of a kind of small bricks or bars of pewter, which Miss Imogene told me were gold that had been originally disguised in this way as a blind to the pirates. In addition were several great canvas bags, into which Prins, moving always as an automaton, thrust his hand, bringing forth different sorts of coins, such as rix-dollars, ducatoons, ducats, Batavian rupees, Spanish dollars, and even schillings, worth no more than six stivers apiece.

There is a pleasure in looking at bright and sparkling objects, at the beauty of gold worked into strange or fantastic shapes, at jewels and stones in their multitude, gleaming out in twenty colours at once. And had I been a picaroon or a woman, I could not have surveyed this collection with sharper delight, though I hope you will not suppose that I felt the buccaneer's thirst for the things. But when my glance went to Vanderdecken, all the shining seemed to die out, and the richest of the jewels to lose its glory.

Not that this was actually so; it was the reflection excited in me that darkened the radiance of that treasure. There stood the great, majestic captain, with his arms folded over his beard, and his eyes fixed on the chest, frightfully symbolising—more wildly and sternly than could the corpse of a miser lying in a coffin, into which had been poured all the ducats he had hoarded in his life—the worthlessness of that wealth of which the desire makes devils of men in secret oppressions and bitter, hidden cruelties. Had Vanderdecken been veritably dead—recumbent—a corpse—the sight of him alongside those cases of costly things would not haply have affected me; 'twas the simulation of life in him, his unhallowed and monstrous vitality, that rendered his typification of the uselessness after death of that for which many among us sell our hearts, nay, diligently toil to extinguish the last spark of the Heavenly fire which the Creator sends us into this life radiant with; as who, looking at a babe's face, but sees?—that rendered, I say, his typification terrible. You could see he took no joy whatever in the contents of the cases; he eyed them stonily; you witnessed no pricking up of his ears to the tinkling and jingling rattle made by the coins as Prins poured them out and back again. Nor, had the money been shingle and the jewels and gold ornaments pieces of coal, could Prins have worked with duller eyes or more mechanical motions.

I said to Miss Imogene, pointing as I spoke to the chests that Vanderdecken might suppose we talked of the treasure in them, "He does not appear to care the snap of a finger for what is there. If the sense of possession is dead in him, why should he take whatever he can find of jewels, gold or silver, from the ships in which he is fortunate enough to find such things?"

"If your brain will not help you to such matters, how should mine?" she replied, with a faint smile. "The idea has never before occurred to me, but be sure 'tis a part of his punishment. He may feel no pleasure in the possession of his wealth; yet he knows it is on board, and it may be intended to render every gale that beats him back more and more bitter and hard by delaying him from carrying his cargo home."

This was shrewdly imagined, I thought, though it did not satisfy me, because since 'twas sure that he had lost recollection of preceding gales, succeeding ones could not gain in bitterness. In truth, we were afloat in a fearful and astonishing Mystery, from which my eagerness to deliver the sweet and fragrant girl by my side grew keener with every look of hers that met mine, and with every glance I directed at the captain and around the ancient interior that time had sickened to the complexion of the death which worked this ship in the forms of men.

Having satisfied me with a sight of these treasures, Vanderdecken ordered Prins to have the chests removed, and we then returned to the table to smoke out the tobacco that remained in our pipes.