Kitabı oku: «Within the Capes», sayfa 8
Tom himself began to be a little down-hearted, and more than once suspected that he had made a wrong guess. But when he brought to mind that the money was of one mintage, and, from the way in which it lay, that it was plainly washed out of the wreck by the water that had flowed over the sand-spit at the time of the hurricane, he would feel reassured that he was right, though he could not account for the reason why a part of it should have been washed up, while the rest seemed to lie so deeply beneath the surface. So he managed to keep Jack pretty steadily to his work, though, as the days dragged along and nothing came of their labor, it became a great task to do so.
But on the tenth day they made a find. They were just about to give up their work for the evening, when Tom unearthed a small, wooden box. It was about a foot long, six inches wide, and three or four inches deep. It was very rotten, and fell to pieces as Jack tried to pick it up. It was full of money, which tumbled all in a heap as the box crumbled in Jack’s hand. The money must have been in rolls when it was put into the case, for there were scraps of mouldy paper mixed with it, and some of the coins had bits of paper glued to them by the black rust that had gathered upon them.
This was the first money that they found by digging, and Jack nearly went crazy over it. Tom himself was very much excited, but he did not act as absurdly as Jack, who danced, and laughed, and shouted like one possessed. It was their first gleam of good luck, and it was a good thing that it came when it did, for it was speedily followed by the worst of ill fortune.
That night there came a south-east storm that did great damage. It had been brewing all of the afternoon, but Tom and Jack had not seen it, or, if they had seen it, had thought nothing of it, for heretofore the wash of the surf had never run as far up as the wreck, even in the heaviest weather. But so much of the sand had been carried away that the surf came a great deal higher than it had done before. It was blowing quite heavily when Tom and Jack went over to the sand-spit the next morning, and a part of the wash of the breakers had found its way into the place that they had been digging, so that the sand had caved in here and there. They tried to do all that they could to protect their work, but it was no good, for, by the time that evening had come, the place that they had dug out was half full of sand, and by the next morning it was nearly levelled over, and all of their labor was to be done again. As soon as the storm was over they set to work, and in a week’s time had the sand nearly all dug out. Then came another blow, and the same thing happened as before.
After this they set about the work with more system. They built a breakwater of stakes, between which they wove twigs and grass. This was Tom’s plan, and they found that it kept the sea back completely, for, as I have said, it was only the wash of the breakers that ran over the place that they were at work. It never filled up again as long as Tom and Jack were engaged upon it.
But all this cost a great deal of time and labor, and I doubt very much if they had not found the box of money whether they would ever have struck a shovel into the sand again after the first storm came upon them; so that it was a lucky thing that they found the box when they did, and that the southeaster did not come a day sooner.
For three or four months they worked as never men worked before. It is strange to think of how men will labor and toil for money, even when money will do them as little good as it did Jack and Tom on this lonely island. It is a wonder that they did not kill themselves with the work and the hardships that they went through during that time. However, the excitement that they were living under kept them up to a great degree.
During all these months they lived upon little else than fish. Now and then they would gather a few mussels or catch a crab or two, but their chief living was fish – broiled fish for breakfast, dinner and supper, until they both grew to loathe the very sight of it. Tom got such a surfeit of them in that time that he could never bear the smell of a frying fish from that day to this.
Upon the first of September they counted over the money that they had unearthed, and they found that they had over eight thousand dollars in all. It was made up of silver coins of all sizes, large and small.
They only had three days more of work on the island, and, as two of those days were blank, they did not add very much to the sum that they had already gathered.
CHAPTER XIII
IT was the morning of the 3d of September of the same year, – 1814.
Tom and Jack had just finished their breakfast; – it was of broiled fish. Hughy! It makes me shudder even now to think of it, for I do hate the very sight of a fish.
The work of digging at the wreck had settled down to a very jog-trot business by this time. Neither of the men were in a hurry to quit their comfortable seat on the sand and turn to hard work, that had lost all the savor of novelty it had had at first. The first day that they had struck shovel into the sand above the wreck, Jack had started off eagerly, without eating a bite; he was quite willing to eat a meal now, – even a meal of broiled fish – and to take a goodly while to the eating of it also. So they both sat dwadling over their unsavory food, not at all anxious to make a start.
“Well, Jack,” said Tom, at last; “I suppose that we might as well be stirring.”
“I reckon we might,” said Jack, and then he stretched himself, as a first step toward getting up.
At that moment a sound fell upon their ears. It was not one to which you would have given a second thought, and yet if it had been a clap of thunder out of a clear sky, it could not have startled the two more than it did.
When they had rebuilt their hut after it had been destroyed by the great hurricane, they had not located in the same spot in which they had lived before. An eddy of the wind had scooped a hollow out of the side of the sand hill, and it was in the side of this cup-shaped hollow that they had digged their house, and had roofed it in with the cutter as they had done before; for they thought that they would be more sheltered in this spot if another hurricane should come upon them. Looking from this hollow in front of them, they could see nothing but a part of the western ocean and the upper end of the sand-spit, whereupon they worked from day to day. It was just back of them, and from the crest or brim of this sandy bowl that the sound came that startled them so greatly.
It was the sound of a man’s voice.
“Ahoy there!”
For a moment Jack and Tom looked at one another without turning around. This minute I can see just how Jack stared at Tom; his mouth agape, and his eyes as big as saucers. But it was only for a moment that they sat looking at one another so amazedly, for the next instant they jumped to their legs and turned around.
A burly red-faced man was standing on the crest of the white sand hill, his figure sharply marked against the blue sky behind him. His hands were thrust deeply into his breeches pockets, and he stood with his legs a little apart. He had a short cutty pipe betwixt his teeth; – the bowl was turned topsey-turvey, and there was no light in it. When he saw that Tom and Jack were looking at him, he spoke again, without taking the pipe from out his mouth.
“Are you fellows the first and second mates of the Nancy Hazlewood, privateersman?”
Jack nodded his head.
The man turned and beckoned two or three times, and then came slowly and carefully down the steep side of the sand dun, half sliding, half stumbling. The first thing that he said when he came to where they were, was:
“I just tell you what it is, mates; that mess of fish smells mighty good.” Then he asked which of them was the first mate.
“I’m the first mate,” said Jack.
By this time three or four heads rose above the crest of the hill, and a little knot of sailors gathered on the top of the dun; then they came jumping and sliding and stumbling down to where the others were standing.
But all this time Tom was like one in a dream. I think that he must have been dazed by the suddenness of the coming of that for which he had longed so bitterly and so deeply. He tried to realize that they were rescued; that these men were about to take them away; that they were really to leave the island that had been their prison for so many long and weary days, and that in a few weeks at the furthest, he would be in Eastcaster again, and would see Patty, and would be talking with her of all these things. Many a time in the silence of the lonely night, he had pictured their rescue to himself, and in the sleep that followed, he had perhaps dreamed that a boat was lying on the beach below their hut, and then had wakened to the bitterness of its being only a dream. But now that rescue had in truth come to them, he could no more realize it than you or I can realize that we are really to see the other world, some time to come. So he stood leaning against the poor old shattered cutter that had sheltered Jack and him for so long, and as he leaned there he looked about him, wondering dully, whether or not he would not awaken in a few minutes and find this too to be only a dream. He heard the man who had hailed them, telling Jack that he was the first mate of the barque Baltimore, of Baltimore, and that they were bound for New York from Key West, having run fifty miles out of their course to pick them up at this island. He heard him ask Jack which one of them had set the bladder of porpoise hide adrift, that the Baltimore had picked up off the Florida coast, and saw that Jack jerked his thumb toward him, and that the mate of the Baltimore was looking at him, and was saying that it was a d – d clever Yankee trick. He saw the sailors crowding around, looking here and there; peeping and prying into the doorway of the hut, and talking amongst themselves. “Blast my eyes, Tommy, look at this here shanty!” “Well, I’m cussed if they hain’t got a ship’s boat slung up for a roof!” “Damme! look at his beard and hair; (this in a hoarse whisper) he’s the second mate, Bill; – Granger, you know.”
Then he heard Jack ask the mate of the Baltimore for a chew of tobacco. He cut off the piece of the plug with his old broken jack-knife, and Tom watched him doing it as though it was a matter of the greatest moment to him. I can recollect that he thought dully how Jack must enjoy his tobacco after having been so long without it.
After a while there was a movement, and he heard Jack calling to him to come along, as they were all going over to the boat, but it was still in the same dazed state that he walked along the beach with the others until they came around the end of the sand hills, saw the bay open before him, and the barque floating like a swan upon the smooth surface of the water. A ship’s boat was lying high and dry on the sand of the beach, and two sailors were sitting in the stern, smoking comfortably and talking together. They tumbled out of the boat and stood looking as the others drew near, and Tom thought what a strange sight Jack and he must be – ragged, tattered, patched, half-naked, with beards reaching to their breasts, and heads uncovered, excepting for the mat of hair that hung as low as their shoulders. He had not thought of their looking strange before this.
So they reached the boat, and Tom stood for a moment looking down into it and at the oars lying along the thwarts within. Then he and Jack and Mr. Winterbury (the first mate) climbed in and the boat was shoved off, grating on the sand as it moved into the water. There was a rattle of oars dropped into the rowlocks, and then the regular “chug! chug!” of the rowing. He looked back and saw the island and the beach and the white sand hills that he knew so well dropping slowly astern. It seemed very strange to be looking at them from the ocean. At last they were close to where the barque was slowly rising and falling upon the heaving of the ground swell that came rolling in around the point of the sandy hook beyond. This is the way in which their rescue came.
As they swept under the lee of the barque Mr. Winterbury stood up in the stern sheets of the boat. There were a row of faces looking down at them from the forecastle, and two or three sailors were standing on the bulwarks, holding on to the shrouds. They, too, were looking down into the boat. Two men were standing near to the break of the poop. One of them was a handsome young fellow of about twenty; the other was a tall, rather loose-jointed man, somewhat round-shouldered, and a little past the prime of life. He had his hands clasped behind him, and he hailed the first mate as soon as the cutter came alongside.
“Did you find them all safe and sound, Mr. Winterbury?”
“Yes, sir; safe and sound.”
Mr. Winterbury went up the side first, and Jack and Tom followed close at his heels. They were met by Captain Williamson as soon as they had stepped upon the deck. He shook hands with them, and immediately asked them to step into the cabin, for he must have seen that it was trying to them to be stared at by all of the ship’s crew. There was a decanter of Madeira and three glasses on the cabin table. Captain Williamson bade Tom and Jack be seated, and then sat down himself. He filled one of the glasses, and then passed the decanter to the others, bidding them to fill likewise, which they did.
It may not be out of place here to give you a description of Captain Williamson. He was one of the skippers of the last century, the like of which we rarely, if ever, see nowadays. He was part owner in the craft that he sailed, and made a good thing of it. He came of an old Annapolis family, and was a courteous, kindly, Christian gentleman, though stiff and formal in his manners. He fancied that he looked like General Washington, and it was a weakness of his to act and carry himself as nearly as he could after the manner of the General, who, by the by, was a distant relative or connection, though by marriage, if I mistake not. Another weakness of his was a fancy that he would have made a great naval captain if he had only had the opportunity.
As it was, he had never smelt fighting powder in all his life; nor was he likely to do so, for, though no coward, he was cautious and careful in the extreme, and would never willingly have entered into action, even with a fighting bum-boat. He always wore a cocked hat, like an admiral, knee-breeches, buckles and pumps, and when he was standing still rested mainly on one foot, with his hands clasped behind him and the knee of the other leg bent, just as General Washington always stands in the pictures that one sees of him.
So he sat now, with one knee crossed over the other, very stiff and straight, just as General Washington might have sat if he had been sitting in the cabin.
“May I ask which of you is the first mate?” said he.
“I’m the first mate, sir,” said Jack.
“Mr. Baldwin, I believe?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Was it you, sir, who conceived the extremely ingenious and clever plan of sending bags or bladders of porpoise hide afloat, with your condition and location inclosed within them?”
“No, sir,” said Jack, “it was my mate here,” and he chucked his thumb toward Tom.
“It was a very clever thought – very clever indeed,” said Captain Williamson, turning to Tom. “How did you get that black substance with which it was covered?”
“We mixed the porpoise blubber with soot,” said Tom.
The captain nodded his head. “Very clever indeed,” said he again, “it was very efficacious, for the bladder was quite covered with the substance when we picked it up – so much so, indeed, that my fingers were thoroughly befouled in the handling of it. And was it you, also, who made the map of the island?”
“Yes, sir,” said Tom again.
Then Captain Williamson nodded his head once more, and said for the third time: “Very clever – very clever, indeed.” Then he told Tom that the Baltimore had picked up the bladder off the Florida coast. “It was,” said he, “but fifty miles out of my course to come to this island, for I am bound for New York harbor. I recognized the situation of the island from the plan of it found enclosed in the bladder.”
“It was a kind and Christian act on your part,” said Tom. “Very few captains would have run fifty miles out of their course to pick up two poor souls, ’specially while so many British cruisers are about. I and my mate – ”
Here he stopped, for a great lump rose in his throat until it seemed to choke him.
“Tut! tut! tut! tut!” said Captain Williamson, holding up his hand deprecatingly; “it was no more than one Christian man ought to do for another. Say no more of that, I beg of you. There are many questions that I wish to ask of you in reference to the loss of the Nancy Hazlewood, but I will not trouble you with questions just at this season. I will beg of you to give such an account, however, after you are refreshed with clean linen and clothes, and what not.”
As Captain Williamson paused for a moment Tom looked at Jack, and saw that he fidgeted restlessly in his chair when the other spoke of the Nancy Hazlewood. There was a great deal about her loss that would be very difficult and very bitter to tell.
“In the meantime,” said Captain Williamson, resuming his speech, “you need have no anxiety about anything that you may desire to fetch away from the island with you, for I have sent a boat ashore under my second mate, Mr. Bright. He will see that everything is brought safely away from your hut or cabin. So, as I said, you need have no anxiety on that score.”
At these words Jack and Tom sprung to their feet, for the thought struck them both at once that their money would be found, and that in an hour’s time every man aboard of the ship would not only know that the two castaways had been digging for treasure, but would also know where that treasure had been found. It would be no secret then, but would be known to all, and there was no telling what such knowledge might bring with it. It was a thing that no one but the captain or the chief officers of the ship should be aware of just at the present time.
“Captain Williamson,” cried Jack, “for the love of heaven, don’t let that boat go ashore just yet! Tom, you speak to him, you’re blessed with the gift of talk; speak to him, and tell him about the mon – , about you know what.”
“Yes, captain,” cried Tom, “for heaven’s sake don’t let the boat go ashore till we tell you something first.”
Captain Williamson had also risen to his feet. He seemed to be very much amazed at their words. “Why not? Why shouldn’t the boat go ashore?” said he. “What does all this mean?”
“Has the boat left the ship yet, captain?” said Tom.
“Yes; the boat has left the ship; but what does all this mean, I say?”
“Then, stop it – call it back!” cried Tom.
Jack was walking up and down, patting his clenched fist in his excitement. “I’ll tell you what it means,” he blurted out; “it means that there’s nigh to nine thousand dollars in silver money in that hut, and that the crew of the boat mustn’t find it there.”
“Nine thousand dollars!” repeated Captain Williamson; and then he stopped and stood glaring at the two men as though he doubted he had heard aright.
“Yes,” said Jack, thumping his fist down on the table, “nine thousand dollars, and if you let that boat’s crew find it, and find where it came from, you’ll be chucking a fortune from your own hands into their pockets. For heaven’s sake, stop the boat – call it back!”
Then Captain Williamson stepped quickly to the door and flung it open. “Mr. Winterbury!” cried he, sharply.
“Aye, aye, sir!”
“Call the cutter back!”
“Call the – ”
“Call the cutter back!”
“Aye, aye, sir!”
There was a pause, and then Tom and Jack heard the bellow of the mate’s voice in the trumpet:
“Cutter ahoy-y-y-y!”
Captain Williamson stood with his head out of the cabin door, and presently they heard him ask:
“Do they hear you, sir?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then signal them back.”
“Aye, aye, sir!”
Then Captain Williamson drew in his head, shutting the door carefully, and resumed his seat. He passed his hand over his face, and crossed his knees, and then put on his Washingtonian air again. I think that he was half ashamed of the excitement that had driven him out of it a moment before.
“Now, Mr. Granger,” said he, “since Mr. Baldwin has called upon you to be the spokesman, will you tell me what all this means?”
“Yes, sir; I will,” said Tom. “Of course, you will have to know everything, after what has passed; but I should have told you of it anyhow, for I put much trust in your honor.”
“You are perfectly right to do so,” said Captain Williamson. “Sit down, if you please.”
Then the two sat down again, and Tom began his story. Captain Williamson did not say a word to interrupt him, but every now and then he looked sharply from Tom to Jack, and from Jack back again to Tom. He sat with his elbows on the arms of his chair, and the tips of his fingers just touching each other; but he did not move a muscle, excepting as he turned his head when he looked first at one, and then at the other.
At last Tom had made an end of the story. Captain Williamson did not move for a second or two, but he sat just as he had been doing all along. Then he drew a deep breath, and arose from his chair. He took a turn or two up and down the cabin; then he stopped suddenly in front of Tom and Jack.
“This is an extraordinary – a most extraordinary tale,” said he. “I never heard the like in all my life. It’s like a tale in a romance, and I can scarcely believe that I have heard aright. That you should find a treasure on this – ”
Here he stopped abruptly and looked sharply from one to the other. “Surely, there can be nothing false and underhand in all this,” he said.
“I suppose the story does sound strange to you,” said Tom. “I reckon that it’s because we’re so used to it that it don’t seem as though it ought to be strange. It’s the truth, though, captain. There wouldn’t be any use in our telling you a lie, for you can easily prove the truth of it for yourself.”
“True, true,” said he, and then he began walking up and down the cabin again. “What do you intend to do about the matter now?” said he, stopping for a moment, and turning to the others.
Tom and Jack looked at one another.
“I’ll leave the whole thing to you, Tom,” said Jack. “It was you who found the money – at least, it was you that found out where it was. I suppose it ought all to belong to you, by rights.”
“That’s all nonsense, Jack,” said Tom. “It was you who found it first; but even if you hadn’t, we’re mates, and it’s share and share alike between us.”
“Well, I reckon that’s no more than fair,” said Jack, “but it don’t matter in this case; I’ll leave the whole thing to you.”
Tom sat lost in thought for a few moments. At last he spoke: “I’d make this proposal,” said he; “that we put the whole thing in the hands of Captain Williamson, leaving him to do what he thinks best in the matter, only having him guarantee to share all gains that shall come from it with us. It seems to me that we certainly owe as much as this to him, and that it’s the least that we can do. What do you think, Jack?”
Jack hesitated for a moment. “Well,” said he, “I suppose that it’s no more than what’s right.”
“I think not,” said Tom. “What do you say about it, captain?”
“It’s for you to say,” said Captain Williamson. “Of course, I’ll be glad to go into the matter with you, but I wish you to understand that I don’t want you to feel that any money is due me because I ran a few miles out of my course to pick you up. That was no more than one man could be expected to do for another. If I come into this, it must be on purely business grounds, and not as a gift of gratitude from you.”
“Very well,” said Tom. “What do you think would be fair terms between us?”
“If you have no objections, I would like to talk with my first mate about it,” said Captain Williamson.
Jack and Tom looked at one another again.
“Do you think that there’s any special need of his knowing about it?” said Jack. “It seems to me that we’re taking in a good many. It’s all right that you should share with us, seeing that you’ve treated us in such a handsome manner. I acknowledge that very few captains would have sailed out of their course in times of war for the sake of picking up a couple of poor, shipwrecked devils, with nothing to be gained by it, and, apart from the business part of it, I think likely that we owe that much to you; but I don’t see why the mate should be taken in, too.”
“I don’t know that he will expect to be ‘taken in,’” said Captain Williamson, somewhat coldly, “but I think that you’ll find his advice in the matter will be of help to you. You may rely upon it that the secret will be as safe with him as it will be with me.”
“All right,” said Jack; “if Tom don’t care, I don’t, either.”
So Mr. Winterbury was called into the cabin, and Tom told the story of the finding of the treasure all over again.
“What do you think of it, Mr. Winterbury?” said Captain Williamson, when Tom had ended.
“I think it’s the most extraordinary yarn that ever I heard in all my life.”
“Exactly my thought. And now, if Mr. Baldwin and Mr. Granger will excuse us for a moment or two, I would like to have a few words with you outside.” Then they went out, and Jack and Tom were left alone.
“It seems to me that you did rather too much, Tom,” said Jack.
“I think it was as little as we could do,” said Tom. “They’ve sailed fifty miles out of their course to pick us up, without expecting so much as a red cent for it, so I think it was as little as we could do.”
“Oh, all right; I’m not finding fault,” said Jack. “I don’t mean to find any fault at all; I was only giving you my notion about it. I’m satisfied.”
But it was very plain, from the way in which he spoke, that he was not satisfied.
In a little while Captain Williamson and Mr. Winterbury came into the cabin again. Then the captain asked a number of questions about the wreck – how much of it they had already uncovered, etc., etc.
“We’ve uncovered a little less than one quarter of it, I should judge,” said Tom, looking to Jack for confirmation.
Jack nodded his head.
Then Captain Williamson told them what his idea was about it. That he did not think that the wreck was that of a treasure ship, as they had not found money enough in it for that; that he had no doubt that the vessel had been carrying newly-minted money to some one of the Spanish provinces when she had been cast on the beach – probably in a south-easterly gale. From what they had already found, he thought that there might have been from forty to fifty thousand dollars in her all together, and that there might be from thirty to forty thousand dollars yet left under the sand. He said that he would undertake to find the rest of the money, and that he would send or take out a ship stocked with provisions for that purpose, the expense of which he would bear himself. That all wages and expenses above that should be paid out of the money that they should find, and that the net gain should be shared equally between them, each taking a third. “Or,” said he, in conclusion, “I will buy either or both of your interests out, accepting all the risks myself. I will give you each six thousand dollars for your share in the venture, for which I offer a note payable at ninety days, with safe indorsement.” He then said that he would give them a week to think over the offer he had made, and would be glad to hear anything that they might have to propose.
I will say here, that at the end of a week they had made up their minds to run their chances of what might be found, and that it paid them to do so.
A little later in the morning Captain Williamson and Mr. Winterbury and Jack and Tom went ashore in the captain’s gig. They left the gig and the crew of it a little distance up the beach, while they four walked down to the hut, Tom and Jack carrying a small sea-chest between them, in which to store the money that was hidden under a pile of brush-wood in the cabin. Then they went out on the sand-spit to inspect the wreck, and Captain Williamson renewed the offer that he had made in the cabin of the Baltimore, and said again that they might take a week to think it over.
Then they tore down the breakwater that Tom and Jack had built, so that the sea might make in during the next storm, and so hide the work that they had done. After this they went back to the gig, and Captain Williamson sent four of the men to the hut for the chest of money.
So, at last, their life upon the island came to an end.
They had a safe and quick journey home, entering Sandy Hook on the 20th of the month. They were quarantined for a couple of days through some delay, and landed in New York on the 23d.
During the voyage home, Jack gave Captain Williamson an account of the loss of the Hazlewood. The captain looked very serious over it; he did not say anything, but he shook his head. He evidently thought that it was a very shady piece of business.
The day after they landed in New York, Jack and Tom took stage to Philadelphia, which they reached a little after noon of the 26th.
You all know what followed. The Board of Trade appointed a committee to inquire into the circumstances of the loss of the ship Nancy Hazlewood. Tom did not write a letter home, because he expected that every day would be his last in town; but the investigation dragged along until more than a week had been consumed by the committee.
Both Tom and Jack were blamed, because that they had come off with their lives, while the captain and most of the crew had gone down in the ship. Mr. Blakie, of the firm of Blakie & Howard, said some particularly bitter and cutting things, which might have stung Tom very sharply if he had not felt that, by rights, there was not much blame resting upon him.
Mr. Blakie’s words were meant as much for him as they were for Jack, for it was not known that Tom had been taken off the vessel against his will. Jack did not breathe a word of this, and Tom was too proud to seem to want to slip from under the blame, and leave Jack to bear it all. Jack did not say in so many words that Tom had joined him in deserting the ship in the cutter, but what he did say would have led any reasonable man to infer as much. It is quite natural that a man should dislike to carry all of a load of blame on his own shoulders, and there is a great satisfaction in knowing that others share the burden; at the same time, it would have been a good thing for Tom, if Jack had spoken out and told the whole truth, for, as it turned out, it weighed in the balance against him when every scruple told.
