Richard le Gallienne - Pieces of Eight

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"_Tobias escaped--just heard he is on your island--watch out. Will
follow in a day or two._"

I came out on deck about sunset. We were running along with all our
sails drawing like a dream. I looked back at the captain, proud and
quiet and happy there at the helm, and nodded a smile to him, which he
returned with a flash of his teeth. He loved his boat; he asked nothing
better than to watch her behaving just as she was doing. And the other
boys seemed quiet and happy too, lying along the sides of the house,
ready for the captain's order, but meanwhile content to look up at the
great sails, and down again at the sea.

We were a ship and a ship's crew all at peace with one another, and
contented with ourselves--rushing and singing and spraying through the
water. We were all friends--sea, and sails, and crew together. I
couldn't help thinking that a mutiny would be hard to arrange under such
a combination of influences.

Tom was sitting forward, plaiting a rope. For all our experiences
together, he never implied that he was anything more than the ship's
cook, with the privilege of waiting upon me in the cabin at my meals.
But, of course, he knew that I had quite another valuation of him, and,
as our eyes met, I beckoned to him to draw closer to me.

"Tom," I said, "I have found my treasure."

"You don't say so, sar."

"Yes! Tom, and I rely upon you to help me to guard it. There are no
ghosts, this time, Tom," I added--as he said nothing, but waited for me
to go on--"and no need of our sucking fish...."

"Are you sure, sar?" he asked, adding: "You can never be sure about
ghosts--they are always around somewhere. And a sucking fish is liable
at any moment to be useful."

I opened my shirt in answer.

"There it is still, Tom; I agree with you. We won't take any unnecessary
chances."

This comforted the old man more than any one could have imagined.

"It's all right then, sar?" he said. "It will come out all right now,
I'm sure--though, as I wanted to say"--and he hesitated--"I had hoped
that you had forgotten those treasures that--"

"Go on, Tom."

"That moth and rust do corrupt."

"I know, dear old Tom, but neither moth nor rust can ever corrupt the
treasure I meant--the treasure I have already found."

"You have found the treasure, sar?" asked Tom, in natural bewilderment.

"Yes, Tom, and I am going to show it to you--to-morrow."

The old man waited, as a mortal might wait till it pleased his god to
speak a little more clearly.

"Quite true, Tom," I continued; "you shall see my treasure to-morrow;
meanwhile, read this note." Tom was so much to me that I wanted him to
know all about the details of the enterprise we shared together, and in
which he risked his life no less than I risked mine.

Tom took out his spectacles from some recess of his trousers, and
applied himself to Charlie Webster's note, as though it had been the
Bible. He read it as slowly indeed as if it had been Sanscrit, and then
folded it and handed it back to me without a word. But there was quite a
young smile in his old eyes.

"'The wonderful works of God,'" he said presently. "I guess, sar, we
shall soon be able to ask him what he meant by that expression."

Then, as sunlight had almost gone, and the stars were trying to come out
overhead, and the boys were stringing out our lanterns, I surprised our
captain by telling him that I had changed my mind, and that I didn't
want to make Nassau that night, but wanted to head back again, but a
point or so to the south'ard. He demurred a little, because, as he said,
he was not quite sure of his course. We ought to have had a pilot, and
the shoals--so much he knew--were bad that way, all "white water,"
particularly in a northeast wind. This only confirmed what the "King"
had said. So, admitting that I knew all the captain said, I ordered him
to do as I told him.

So we ruffled it along, making two or three "legs"--I sitting abaft the
jib boom, with my back against the mainmast, watching out for Samson and
his light.

Soon the long dark shore loomed ahead of us. I had reckoned it out about
right. But the Captain announced that we were in shoal water.

"How many feet?" I asked, and a boy threw out the lead.

"Sixteen and a half," he said.

"Go ahead," I called out.

"Do you want to go aground?" asked the Captain.

For answer, I pushed him aside and took the wheel. I had caught the
smallest glimmer, like a night-light, floating on the water.

"Drop the anchor," I called.

The light in shore was clear and near at hand, about one hundred yards
away, and there was the big murmur and commotion of the long breakers
over the dancing shoals. We rolled a good deal, and the Captain moodily
took my suggestion of throwing out three anchors and cradling them;
though, as he said, with the way the northeast was blowing, we should
soon be on dry land. It was true enough. The tide was running out very
fast, and the white sand coming ever nearer to our eyes in the
moonlight; and Samson's light, there, was keeping white and steady. With
the thought of my treasure and the "King" so near by, it was hard to
resist the temptation to plunge in and follow my heart ashore. But I
managed to control the boyish impulse, and presently we were all snug,
and some of us snoring, below decks, rocked in the long swells of the
shoal water that gleamed milkily like an animated moonstone under the
stars--old Sailor curled up at my feet, just like old times.

CHAPTER X

_The Hidden Creek._

I woke just as dawn was waking too, very still and windless; for the
threatening nor'easter had changed its mind, and the world was as quiet
as though there weren't a human being in it. Near by, stretched the long
low coast-line, nothing but level brush, with an occasional thatch-palm
lifting up a shock-head against the quickening sky. Out to sea, the
level plains of lucent water spread like a vast floor, immensely
vacant--not a sail or even a wing to mar the perfect void.

As the light grew, I scanned the shore to see whether I could detect the
entrance of the hidden creek; but, though I swept it up and down again
and again, it continued to justify the "King's" boast. There was no sign
of an opening anywhere. Nothing but a straight line of brush, with
mangroves here and there stepping down in their fantastic way into the
water. And yet we were but a hundred yards from the shore. Certainly
"Blackbeard"--if the haunt had really been his--had known his business;
for an enemy could have sought him all day along this coast and found
no clue to his hiding-place.

But, presently, as my eyes kept on seeking, a figure rose, tall and
black near the water's edge, a little to our left, and shot up a long
arm by way of signal. It was Samson; and evidently the mouth of the
creek was right there in front of us--under our very noses, so to
say--and yet it was impossible to make it out. However, at this signal,
I stirred up the still-sleeping crew, and presently we had the anchors
up, and the engine started at the slowest possible speed.

The tide was beginning to run in, so we needed very little way on us. I
pointed out Samson to the captain, and, following the "King's"
instructions, told him to steer straight for the negro. He grumbled not
a little. Of course, if I wanted to run aground, it was none of his
affair--etc., etc. Then I stationed the sturdiest of the two deck-hands
on the port bow with a long oar, while I took the starboard with
another. Very slowly and cautiously we made in, pointing straight for a
thick growth of mangrove bushes. Samson stood there and called:

"All right, sar. Keep straight on. You'll see your way in a minute."

And, sure enough, when we were barely fifty feet away from the shore,
and there seemed nothing for it but to run dead aground, low down
through the floating mangrove branches we caught sight of a narrow gleam
starting inland, and in another moment or two our decks were swept with
foliage as the _Flamingo_ rustled in, like a bird to cover, through an
opening in the bushes barely twice her beam; and there before us,
snaking through the brush, was a lane of water which immediately began
to broaden between palmetto-fringed banks, and was evidently deep enough
for a much larger vessel.

"Plenty of water, sar," hallooed Samson from the bank, grinning a huge
welcome. "Keep a-going after me," and he started trotting along the
creek-side.

As we pushed into the glassy channel, I standing at the bow, my eyes
were arrested by a tremendous flashing commotion in the water to the
right and left of us--like the fierce zigzagging of steel blades, or the
ferocious play of submerged lightning. It was a select company of
houndfish and sharks that we had disturbed, lying hellishly in wait
there for the prey of the incoming tide. It was a curiously sinister
sight, as though one had come upon a nest of water-devils in council,
and the fancy jumped into my mind that here were the spirits of Teach
and his crew once more evilly embodied and condemned to haunt for ever
this gloomy scene of their crimes.

Samson went trotting along the twisting banks, we cautiously feeling our
way after him, for something like a quarter of a mile; and then, coming
round a sudden bend, the creek opened out into a sort of basin. On the
left bank stood two large palmetto shanties. Samson indicated that there
was our anchorage; and then, as we were almost alongside of them, the
cheery halloos of a well-known voice hailed us. It was the "King"; and,
as I answered his welcome, the morning suddenly sang for me--for there
too was Calypso, at his side.

The water ran so deep at the creek's side that we were able to moor the
_Flamingo_ right up against the bank, and, when I had jumped ashore and
greeted my friends, and the "King" had executed a brief characteristic
fantasia on the manifest advantages of having a hidden pirate's creek in
the family, he unfolded his plans, or rather that portion of them that
was necessary at the moment.

The crew of the _Flamingo,_ he said, had better stay where they were for
the present. If they were tired of sleeping aboard, there were his two
palmetto palaces, with couches of down on which to stretch their
limbs--and, for amusement--poor devils!--he swept his eyes whimsically
around that dreariest of landscapes--they might exercise their
imaginations by pretending, after the manner of John Teach, that they
were on an excursion to Hades--this was the famous River Acheron--and so
on. But, seriously, he ended, we would find some way of keeping them
from committing hari-kari and, meanwhile, we would leave them in peace,
and stroll along toward breakfast.

At that moment, Sailor rubbed his head against my knee.

"Ah!" said the "King," "the heroic canine! He, of course, must not be
left behind. We may very well need you in our counsels, eh, old fellow?"
and he made friends with Sailor in a moment, as only a man who loves
dogs can.

I believe I was second in Sailor's affection from that moment of his
meeting the "King." But then, who wouldn't have been?

So then, after a reassuring word or two with Tom and the Captain, we
went our ways toward breakfast--the "King's" tongue and Sailor's wagging
happily in concert every inch of the way.

CHAPTER XI

_An Old Enemy._

Charlie Webster's laconic note was naturally our chief topic over
breakfast. "_Tobias escaped--just heard he is on your island. Watch out.
Will follow in a day or two._" The "King" read it out, when I handed him
the note across the table.

"Your friend writes like a true man of action," he added, "like
Caesar--and also the electric telegraph. We must send word to Sweeney to
be on the look-out for him. I will send Samson the Redoubtable with a
message to him this morning. Meanwhile, we will smoke and think."

Then for the next hour the "King" thought--aloud; while Calypso and I
sat and listened, occasionally throwing in a parenthesis of comment or
suggestion. It was evident, we all agreed, that Calypso had been right.
It had been Tobias and none other whose evil eye had sent her so
breathless back to me, waiting in the shadow of the woods; and it was
the same evil eye that had fallen vulture-like on her golden doubloon
exposed on Sweeney's counter.

Now what were we to think of Tobias?--what really were his notions
about this supposititious treasure?--and what was likely to be his plan
of action? Had he really any private knowledge of the whereabouts of his
alleged ancestral treasure?--or was his first authentic hint of its
whereabouts derived from the manuscript--first overheard while
eavesdropping at John Saunders's office, and afterward purloined from
John Saunders's verandah?

There seemed little doubt that this second surmise was correct; for, if
he had had any previous knowledge, he would have had no need of the
manuscript and long ago he would have gone after the treasure for
himself, and found it or not, as the case might be. Probably there was a
tradition in his family of the existence somewhere of his grandfather's
treasure; but that tradition was very likely the sum of his inheritance;
and doubtless it was the mere accident of his dropping into Saunders's
office that morning which had set him on the track.

It was also likely, indeed practically certain, that he had been able to
make no more out of the manuscript than I had; that he had concluded
that I had somehow or other unearthed more about it than he; and that,
therefore, his most promising clue to its discovery would be my actions.
To keep me in sight was the first step. So far so good.

But thus far, it would appear to him, I had had no very positive
success. Otherwise, I would not still be on the quest. He had probably
been aware of my movements, and may have been lying hidden on the island
longer than we suspected. From some of his spies he had heard of my
presence in the settlement, and, chance having directed him to Sweeney's
store at the moment of Calypso's ringing down that Spanish gold on the
counter, he had somehow connected Calypso's doubloon with me.

At all events, it was clear that there were such coins on the island in
somebody's possession. Then, when he had watched Calypso on her way
home--and, without any doubt, been the spectator of our meeting at the
edge of the wood though we had been unable to catch sight of him--there
would, of course, be a suspicion in his mind that my quest might at last
be approaching success, and that his ancestral millions might be almost
in my hands. That there might be some other treasure on the island with
which neither he nor his grandfather had any concern would not occur to
him, nor would it be likely to trouble him if it did. My presence was
enough to prove that the treasure was his--for was it not his treasure
that I was after? Logic irrefutable! How was he to know that all the
treasure so far discovered was that modest hoard--unearthed, as I had
heard, in the garden--the present whereabouts of which was known only to
Calypso. The "King" had interrupted himself at this point of argument.

"By the way, Calypso, where is it?" he asked unexpectedly, to the sudden
confusion of both of us. "Isn't it time you revealed your mysterious
Aladdin's cave?"

At the word "cave" the submerged rose in Calypso's cheeks almost came to
the surface of their beautiful olive.

"Cave!" she countered manfully, "who said it was a cave?"

"It was merely a figure of speech, which--if I may say so, my
dear--might apply with equal fitness, say--to a silk stocking."

And Calypso laughed through another tide of rose-colour.

"No, Dad, not that either. Never mind where it is. It is perfectly safe,
I assure you."

"But _are_ you sure, my dear? Wouldn't it be safer, after all, here in
the house? How can you be certain that no one but yourself will
accidentally discover it?"

"I am absolutely certain that _no one will,_" she answered, with an
emphasis on the last three words which sent a thrill through me, for I
knew that it was meant for me. Indeed, as she spoke, she furtively gave
me one of those glances of soft fire which had burnt straight through to
my heart in Sweeney's store--a sort of blended challenge and appeal.

"Of course, Dad," she added, "if you insist--you shall have it. But
seriously I think it is safer where it is, and if I were to fetch it,
how can I be sure that no one"--she paused, with a meaning which I, of
course, understood--"Tobias, for instance, would see me going--and
follow me."

"To be sure--to be sure," said the "King." "What do you think, friend
Ulysses?"

"I think it more than likely that she might be followed," I answered,
"and I quite agree with Miss Calypso. I certainly wouldn't advise her to
visit her treasure just now--with the woods probably full of eyes. In
fact," I added, smiling frankly at her, "I could scarcely answer for
myself even--for I confess that she has filled me with an overpowering
curiosity."

And in my heart I stood once more amid the watery gleams and echoes of
that moonlit cavern, struck dumb before that shining princess from
whose mouth and hands had fallen those strange streams of gold.

"So be it then," said the "King"; "and now to consider what our friend
here graphically speaks of as those eyes in the woods. 'The woods were
full of eyes.' Ah! friend Ulysses, you evidently share my taste for the
romantic phrase. Who cares how often it has been used? It is all the
better for that. Like old wine, it has gained with age. One's whole
boyhood seems to be in a phrase like that--Dumas, Scott, Fenimore
Cooper. How often, I wonder, has that divine phrase been written--'the
woods were full of eyes.' And now to think that we are actually living
it--an old boy like myself even. 'The woods were full of eyes.' Bravo!
Ulysses, for it is still a brave and gallant world!"

The "King" then made a determined descent into the practical. The woods,
most probably, _were_ full of eyes. In plain prose, we were almost
certainly being watched. Unless--unless, indeed, my bogus departure for
Nassau had fooled Tobias as we had hoped. But, even so, with that lure
of Calypso's doubloon ever before him, it was too probable that he would
not leave the neighbourhood without some further investigation--"an
investigation," the "King" explained, "which might well take the form
of a midnight raid; murdered in our beds, and so forth."

That being so, being in fact almost a certainty--the "King" spoke as
though he would be a much disappointed man otherwise--we must look to
our garrison. After all, besides ourselves, we had but Samson and
Erebus, and their dark brethren of doubtful courage, while Tobias
probably had command of a round dozen of doughty desperadoes. On the
whole, perhaps, he said, it might be best to avail ourselves of the crew
of the _Flamingo_--"under cover of the dark," he repeated with a smile.

Yes! that must be the first step. We must get them up there that night,
under cover of the dark; keep them well hidden, and--well! await
developments. Charlie Webster might be expected any moment with his
reinforcements, and then!--"Lay on, Macduff!"

While we had been talking, Samson had long since been on his way with
the word to Sweeney to look out for Webster, and, as he had been
admonished to hurry back, it was scarcely noon when he returned,
bringing in exchange a verbal message from Sweeney.

"The pock-marked party," ran the message as delivered by Samson, "had
left the harbour in his sloop that morning. Yes, sar!"

"Ha! ha!" laughed the "King," turning to me. "So two can play at that
game, says Henry P. Tobias, Jr. But if we haven't fooled him, let's make
sure that he hasn't fooled us. We'll bring up your crew all the
same--what do you think?"

"Under cover of the dark," I assented.

CHAPTER XII

_In Which the "King" Imprisons Me with Some Old Books and Pictures._

Nothing further transpired that day, and, at nightfall, we brought the
crew of the _Flamingo_ up to the house--all but two of them, whom we
left on guard. Two out of six was rather more than we had bargained for,
but we found that none of them had the courage to face the night there
in that dismal swamp alone--and we couldn't blame them, for a more
devil-haunted desolation could not be imagined even in the daylight, and
the mere thought of what might go on there after dark was enough to
uncurl the wool on the head of the bravest negro. And we agreed, too,
that the watch should be changed nightly, a fresh pair going on duty
each evening.

Then there was nothing to do but sit down and await events--amongst
them, the coming of Charlie Webster.

In regard to this, we had decided that it would be as well that, instead
of disembarking at the settlement, he should come and join the
_Flamingo_ in the hidden creek; so Samson was once more despatched down
to Sweeney with a letter for him to hand to Charlie on his arrival,
giving him direction how to find us. Meanwhile, our two men on the
_Flamingo_ could keep watch for him by day, and have a light burning for
him at the entrance of the creek by night.

The "King's" instructions to me were that I was not to show my nose
outside the house. Possibly I might expose the tip of it once in a
while, for a little exercise in the garden--where all this time the
little silver fountain went on playing amid the golden hush of the
orange trees, filling the lotus flowers with big pearls of spray. But,
most of the day, I must regard myself as a prisoner, with the entire
freedom of his study--a large airy room on the second floor, well
furnished with all manner of books, old prints, strange fishes in glass
cases, rods, guns, pipe-racks, curiosities of every kind from various
parts of the world--India, the South Seas, Australia, not forgetting
London and Paris--and all the flotsam and jetsam of a far-wandered man,
who--as the "King" remarked, introducing their autobiographic display
with a comprehensive wave of his hand--had, like that other wanderer
unbeloved of all schoolboys, the pious AEneas, been so much tossed about
on land and sea--_vi superum, saevae memorem Junonis ob iram_--that he
might found his city and bring safe his household gods from Latium.
Touching his hand lightly on a row of old quartos, in the stout calfskin
and tarnished gold dear to bookmen, he said:

"These I recommend to you in your enforced leisure."

They were a collection of old French voyages--Dampier and
others--embellished with copper-plate maps and quaint engravings of the
fauna and flora of the world, still in all the romantic virginity of its
first discovery.

"This," he said, pointing to a stout old jar of Devonshire ware, "is
some excellent English tobacco--my one extravagance; and here," pointing
to a pipe-rack, "are some well-tried friends from that same 'dear, dear
land,' 'sceptred isle of kings,' and so forth. And now I am going to
leave you, while I go with Samson and Erebus on a little reconnoitring
tour around our domains."

So he left me, and I settled down to a pipe and a volume of Dampier;
but, interesting as I found the sturdy old pages, my thoughts, and
perhaps particularly my heart, were too much in the present for my
attention long to be held by even so adventurous a past; so, laying the
book down, I rose from my chair, and made a tour of inspection of the
various eloquent objects about the room--objects which made a sort of
chronicle in bric-a-brac of my fantastic friend's earthly pilgrimage,
and here and there seemed to hint at the story of his strange soul.

Among the books, for example, was a fine copy of Homer, with the arms of
a well-known English college stamped on the binding, and near by was the
faded photograph of a beautiful old Elizabethan house, with mouldering
garden walls, and a moat brimming with water-lilies surrounding it.
Hanging close by it, was another faded photograph, of a tall stately old
lady, who, at a glance, I surmised must be the "King's" mother. As I
looked at it, my eyes involuntarily sought the garden with its palms and
its orange trees. Far indeed had the son of her heart wandered, like so
many sons of stately English mothers, from that lilied moat and those
old gables, and the proud old eyes that would look on her son no more
forever.

And then in my privileged inspection of these sacred symbols, carried
across so many storm-tossed seas from that far-away Latium, I came upon
another photograph, hanging over the writing-desk--a tall,
Spanish-looking young woman of remarkable beauty. It needed but one
glance to realise that here was Calypso's mother; and, as was natural,
I stood a long time scanning the countenance that was so like the face
which, from my first sight of it, had seemed the loveliest in the world.
This was a flower that had been the mother of a flower. It was a face
more primitive in its beauty, a little less touched with race, than the
one I loved, but the same fearless natural nobility was in it, and the
figure had the same wild grace of pose, the same lithe strength of
carriage.

As I stood looking at it, lost in thought, I heard the "King's" voice
behind me. His step was so light that I had not heard him enter the
room.

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