CHAPTER XXVI.

A TRAGIC SHIFT OF COURSE.

All went well with us through the month of February and through the early days of March in that year of God, 1815, until it came to pass that we arrived in the latitude 45° south, and in longitude 47° west.

I was very hopeful in this time. The crew had been orderly, civil, and quick; strong, prosperous winds had swept us round the Horn and northward; we were homeward bound; we were putting the unfamiliar stars of the south over our stern; already some were gone, and some wheeled low. I walked the deck with gladness, and knew but two sorrows: that Greaves was not at my side to share in the rich issue of his own discovery and his own expedition, and that my poor, faithful, well-loved Galloon was drowned.

Little wonder that my heart at this time felt light, that my spirits sometimes danced. Let me but bring the brig to a safe anchorage off Deal, and I might hope--failing frigates and presses--that my business was done. I should have taken a long farewell of the sea. I should be a rich man; for to me in those days, _six thousand pounds_ of English money was a great sum--aye, beyond my utmost hopes by one cipher at least. Yes; and even had I dreamt of _six hundred pounds_, how was I to earn it? Never could I have saved so much money out of the slender wage of the ocean. Why, let me even knock off another cipher, and put the figure at _sixty pounds_. Do many Jacks, after years of bitter toil, limp ashore--curved in the back, one-eyed, maybe, half-fingerless, rotted to their marrow with the beastly food, the stinking water of the jolly life of the deep, rotted to the soul by nameless sins and the slum-and-alley seductions of a hundred ports--are there many Jacks, I ask, whose savings, after years of labor, amount to _sixty pounds_?

There is an irony of circumstance at sea as there is ashore; but at sea this sort of irony is bitterer than ashore, because nothing can happen at sea that lacks a coloring, more or less defined, of the fearful significance of life or death.

In proof whereof list, ye landsmen, to what I am about to relate.

You will suppose that so shrewd, intelligent, and diligent a lady as the Señorita Aurora would not need to be thrown much in the company of an Englishman, would not need to be long instructed by him, would not need to spend many hours in studying for herself, before she acquired a very respectable knowledge of the English tongue. And let me tell you that, by this time, though she spoke slowly, with many pauses, though she wanted many words, she was already become a very good listener when I discoursed in my own speech. How long should it take an intelligent Spanish lady to learn English--to talk it freely and correctly? I don’t know. My lady Aurora began (in questions) the study of the language, as you may remember, in the beginning of January; and now, in these early days of March, she understood me when I talked to her; when I talked to her slowly and pronounced my words carefully, and when I helped her with a sign or a Spanish word here and there.

I’ll call the date the 12th of March: it was a Friday; I sat at dinner with Madam Aurora. Dinner!--yet I must give even that pleasant name to the midday repast, to the piece of beef in whose mahogany texture lurked scurvy enough to lay low a watch, to the boiled duff and the several messes of the caboose. But then our stock of poultry was growing small; we had need to be frugal; we were in the unhappy condition of not daring, or not choosing if you will, to look into a port for the replenishment of coops and casks.

I sat with her ladyship, and we ate of the yield of the _Black Watch’s_ cabin pantry. The day was fine; the sun sparkled white as silver upon the skylight. The royal yards were aloft, and the brig was sailing with her larboard topmast studding sail out, making very little noise as she went, so that talking was easy.

Times had been when Miss Aurora questioned me about the dollars in the lazarette. She had asked me for the name of the ship they came from: I had answered her, _La Perfecta Casada_. She had asked me for the story of Greaves’ discovery, and by our methods of communication I had spun her the yarn. When I had spun her the yarn, she informed me that she had heard of the loss of a Spanish ship called _La Perfecta Casada_, with all hands, as it was supposed, but this said, the subject dropped, and we rarely afterward mentioned the matter of the treasure in the hold.

Now, while we were at dinner this day, we talked of her shipwreck. She said there had been a quantity of antique valuable furniture belonging to her mother on board; otherwise, saving clothes and jewelry, the Señora de la Cueva had embarked no property in the ship. She spoke of the captain and officers of the vessel. The captain was a worthless seaman, a timid, ill-tempered, swearing fellow, a native of the Manillas. We drifted from this subject of the wreck to _La Perfecta Casada_. Our conversation was animated, despite the frequent interruption of gesticulations, the many hindrances of words unintelligible through their pronunciation, the frequent pausings for the needful term. She requested me to describe the cave in which the _Casada_ lay. I fetched paper and pencil, and drew it for her as best I could. Then she asked me the value of the treasure, and I told her very honestly that it rose to above half a million of dollars of the currency of her nation.

“Ave Maria!” cried she, “what wealth to discover in a cave. It is like a tale told by the Arabs. Santa Maria Purissima! What a treasure for a mariner of the orthodox faith to dedicate to the Church! You will receive a handsome portion, I trust?”

“I will receive a share,” said I.

“And the poor Captain Greaves--had he a share!”

“A big share.”

“It will go to his mother?”

“He had no relations. It will go to his Church.”

Her eyes sparkled. “My Church!” she cried, pressing her forefinger to her breast.

“Mine,” said I, imitating her action with my forefinger.

She shrugged her shoulders, looked at me fixedly, smiled, and gave me several nods in the foreign fashion.

I felt no reluctance in talking to her about the treasure. Indeed, I had never sympathized with Greaves’ nervous caution in this way. It was not as if he and I alone had possessed the secret of the dollars: all hands knew there were fifteen tons of minted silver in the lazarette. What on earth was the use of concealing the fact from this Spanish lady, as if she only of all the souls on board the brig was to be feared by and by as the intelligencer?

I was in high spirits that day: the sunshine in the heavens was upon my heart; I enjoyed the company of the handsome lady; I found a growing and a deepening pleasure in viewing her when she talked; I delighted in the music that her voice gave to her English. All was well and we were homeward bound. I had a mind to talk of my dollars and my prospects, and whether she guessed my wish or not she helped me to the subject by asking me how much my share would amount to.

“Many figures in dollars,” said I, “and in British gold just a little fat figure.”

“Shall you buy a ship?” said she, smiling.

“No,” said I, looking earnestly at her; “I will marry a wife and settle down.”

She clapped her hands, threw her head back, and laughed aloud. “_Qué disperate._ Cannot you make a better use of your money than purchasing a wife with it? Señor Fielding, you shall buy a fine ship and trade to the Indies and grow immensely rich. Marry! _Qué disperate._” She threw back her head again, and laughed out.

“I’ll buy no ship,” said I. “I will marry a handsome woman, and live happily with her on the seashore. She and I will go a-fishing for pleasure. You are not a sailor: were you a sailor, you would think of nothing but a wife and a home of your own and money enough for meat, tobacco, and the rest.”

“Your wife,” said she, “shall be another _Perfecta Casada_: she shall make you more money than any woman can bring you. You’ll die a Catholic, and your fortune shall build a magnificent cathedral;” and now, without another word, she abruptly rose, made me a low, strange bow, as though forsooth we had met for the first time in our brig five minutes before, and went to her cabin.

She was frequently puzzling me in this way. She’d abandon herself, so to speak; be all charm, naïveté, smiles, and graciousness, then abruptly look poniards and corkscrews, and with a sweep of her fine figure make off. Was it her theory of coquetry?

I went on deck with a half smile in my thought of her odd, abrupt, capricious withdrawal, and amused, too, with thinking of how I now managed to make out a clear conversation with a girl who, a few weeks before, pointed at things with her finger and talked to me with her eyes. The time was about twenty minutes before two. John Wirtz was at the wheel. Bol, whose watch it was, talked with Travers and Teach in the gangway. Travers and Teach were in Galen’s watch. I was surprised to find them aft; further aft, I mean, than that they had a right to be, talking with Bol, whose business it was to keep a lookout. Galen was on the forecastle pacing to and fro, under the yawn of the fore-course, with Henry Call and James Meehan; Friend and the two Spaniards were squatted upon a sail in the waist, stitching at it. Both watches then were on deck, and all hands saving Jim Vinten, the cabin boy, visible.

I found something strange in this: yet had I taken time to reflect I might have seen that the strangeness lay rather in the bearing of the men than in the circumstance of all the crew being in sight. I looked aloft: every cloth was doing its work; the whiteness of the sails overflowed the boundaries of the bolt-ropes with light, and the azure of the sky was a pale silver against the edges of the canvas. The foam spitting from the nimble thrust of the cut-water shot by fast alongside; the brig was sailing well. I stood with my hands upon one of the shrouds of the main, my eyes upon the sea line: turning a minute or two later I saw Yan Bol corning to me.

“Mr. Fielding,” said he, “I likes to have a quiet talk mit you.”

Travers and Teach in the gangway held their stations looking at us. Galen came to a halt on the forecastle with his face aft; Friend looked at us with his needle poised; the Spaniards went on stitching.

“What is it?”

“I shpeak for all handts. Do not be afraid, Mr. Fielding. She vhas all right and every man vhas good friendts.”

“Afraid!” said I, looking at him steadily, though I was conscious that the blood was gone out of my cheeks. “I think you said _afraid_?”

“I ox pardon, I vhas----”

“There is no Dutchman in this ship--there is no Dutchman in all Holland that can make me afraid. Use another word and bear a hand. I mean to get an hour’s sleep this afternoon.”

“Dere vhas nothing I hope to stop you sleeping soundtly as long as you please.”

“What do you want?”

“Mr. Fielding, ve vants the brig’s course altered.”

“Ay, indeed. For what part of the world?”

“I hope you shall not sneer. By ter tunder of Cott, all handts vhas in earnest.”

“Dot vhas so,” exclaimed Wirtz at the wheel, in his deep voice.

I observed that Galen had come aft and was standing with Travers and Teach at the gangway, within easy earshot of our voices: in fact, they were almost abreast of us t’other side of the deck, and our ship, as you know, was a little one.

“You want the brig’s course altered? For where?”

“For Amsterdam Island.”

“Yes, that island in the Indian Ocean which the Dutch discovered and gave a name to, and which you were talking about to me lately.”

“Mr. Fielding, ve vhas all good friendts. I like to talk mit you as a mate mit his captain. Ve vhas respectful, but, by Cott, ve vhas in bloydy earnest also.” He smote the palm of his left hand with his huge right fist and looked round, on which Galen, Teach, Travers, and others came aft. Friend flung down his palm and needle and joined the group; the Spaniards rose to their feet, but remained where they were.

I knew myself pale. I was startled--I was thunderstruck; down to this instant the crew had given me no hint to suspect their willingness to work the brig to the Channel. I fetched some labored breaths, recollected myself with a prodigious effort of resolution, and after looking first at one face and then at another, during which time I was eyed with great eagerness, with here and there the hint of a threat, but generally with countenances not wanting in respect, I exclaimed, “Who will tell me what it is you want?”

“Shall I speak, Mr. Bol?” said Teach.

“Shpeak,” cried Bol in his voice of thunder.

“The matter’s simple as countin’ your toes,” said Teach, addressing me. “There’s a cargo of silver down in the lazarette, aint there? The captain’s dead--him it rightly belonged to as the discoverer of it. He’s dead, and us men are agreed that his share--a lump we allow--should be divided among all hands, you being one of us.”

“Dot’s so,” said Bol.

“We don’t want no blooming fuss,” continued Teach; “the job’s to be handled so that it shall be agreeable to all concerned. Here’s the brig, and the money’s below.”

“Dot vhas so,” said Galen. “Dis vhas a shob over vhich ve all shakes hands.”

“If we carried the money home,” continued Teach, “what’s going to happen? Mr. Tulp’ll claim the captain’s share as well as his own. And what’s to be his own? And what’s to be your’n, Mr. Fielding? And what’s to be our’n? Tulp ’ud suck egg and smash the shell agin our faces. Our rights goes hell’s own length beyond the measly hundreds that’s to be our fo’ksle allowance of dollars.”

“No need to curse and swear, Thomas,” exclaimed Friend. “Mr. Fielding’s a-taking of it all in. Give him time. Before a man lets go he sings out. We haven’t sung out. I’m for kindly feelings in this here traverse.”

“The shares you are promised along with your wages,” said I, “should satisfy you. I will see that every man is paid.”

“Vhat vhas your share, sir?” said Wirtz at the wheel.

“Aint it worth naming?” said Meehan after a short silence.

Call laughed.

“‘Taint as if you was here through Mr. Tulp’s ordering,” said Teach.

“You have chosen me captain,” said I.

“The brig saved your life,” exclaimed Street; “you owes us a good turn.”

“Captain you are and captain we wishes you to remain,” said Teach.

“Dere vhas one ting dot vhas proper you should recollect, Mr. Fielding,” said Bol. “How about der wars dot vhas on? If we carries der treasure oop der Atlantic ve stands to lose her. Down here dere vhas peace und comfort.”

“Are not our heels a match for anything that’s afloat?” said I.

“Yaw,” answered Bol, “and vhilst ve roon a shoe comes off; den vhere vhas ve? Look at our gompany. Look at our goons.”

“What’s your scheme?” I exclaimed.

“Is it for me to speak?” said Teach.

“Shpeak, Thomas,” cried Bol.

“Our scheme’s this, sir. We want you to carry the brig to Amsterdam Island, where we mean to heave the brig to, weather allowing, land the silver, bury it, and sail away for New Holland.”

“Out with it all, Tom,” said Travers.

“There’s a party as is settled at Port Jackson,” continued Teach. “He’s a relation of mine. He’ll do for us men what Mr. Tulp did for Captain Greaves; if this brig’s to be given up, he’ll find us a schooner or some such craft. We’ll fetch the silver in her, and he’ll receive it, and divide it among us, making a share for himself. His share’ll be what our’n is, no more nor less. That’ll be right. We find him the money and he finds us the vessel, and it’s share and share alike. I am for fair dealing. Straight was straight with me afore I went to sea; I wor straight as a little ’un; straight’s the word still; and I han’t kinked yet. What are we doing? Robbing any man of his rights?” cried he, looking around into the faces of the others. “I say no. The captain’s dead. If he were alive his rights ’ud carry the brig home, barring events. But he’s dead; his money falls into shares for us men to take up--for us men and you, sir. As for Mr. Tulp--look here. Suppose he never hears again of the brig? Is this a-going to break any man’s heart? How is he to know that we’ve got the silver? How is he to know Captain Greaves’ yarn warn’t a lie? What’s his venture? Just the cost of the hiring of this brig. Well, by our not turning up we save him in wages. That’s wrote off, and that means pounds in good money. The brig don’t turn up, and what then; she’s gone to the bottom; she’s been taken. It’ll hentertain Mr. Tulp when he aint hard at work making money, to guess what’s become of us; and how’ll our mysterious disappearance leave him? Vy, one of the richest gents in the city o’ Amsterdam.”

Every eye was fastened upon my face while Teach addressed me. The fellows’ looks were eloquent with expectation that I should be instantly convinced, satisfied, impressed, eager to execute their wishes. Jimmy was staring at us out of the door of the caboose and I called to him:

“Fetch me the bag of charts and a pair of compasses.”

He brought the things. I found a chart of the world--a track chart.

“Spread this on the skylight,” said I, giving it to Teach. He and Travers held it open on the skylight. “Do you know the situation of the brig at this moment?” said I.

The men drew shouldering round me to look; Yan Bol stooped his huge form and ran his wide and heavy face over the chart, his nose within an inch of it as though he hunted for a flea. Not a man could point to, nay, not a man had the least idea of, the place of the brig on the chart.

“Here’s where we are now,” said I, “and here’s Amsterdam Island.”

They huddled yet closer in a hairy, warm, hard-breathing group to look at the island.

“There it is, and here are we. Can you collect sea distances by looking on a chart?”

“No.”

“Damn your ignorance. It’s out of that this trouble’s come. Look, you Bol, you Dutchmen who are the cooks of this devil’s mess--look how I take this pair of metal legs and make them walk--look--every step signifying the flight of a ship in a week of prosperous gales. Look--peer close--value every one of these lines at twenty leagues; count them, Bol, count them.”

“She vhas some vhays off; dot’s allowed,” answered Bol. “But dere vhas der island, und dere vhas ve, all in goodt time.”

“Why _that_ island?” said I, stepping back from the chart to command the men’s faces.

“Because I knows her,” answered Galen. “I vhas off her. She vhas an uninhabited island. She vhas lofty, mit goodt hiding ground. She vhas never visited.”

“Dot’s vy,” said Bol.

“I’ll not carry you there.”

“Ve’ll turn it over, sir,” said Friend.

“I’ll not help you to rob Mr. Tulp of his share.”

“Dere vhas no robbery. Ve vhas lost at sea, mit all hands,” said Galen.

“I’ll sail you home and, if you choose, will give you my bond to pay you so many of the dollars as we’ll agree to. But I’ll not take you to Amsterdam Island. So what will you do?”

“What’ll _you_ do, sir?” exclaimed Teach.

“My duty.”

“Dot vhas not even half-way,” said Bol.

I called to Jimmy to restow the charts and bring them below, and descended the companion ladder. I was alone, and glad to be alone. The looks and questions, nay, the presence of her ladyship would have been intolerable to me just then. I sat down at the table and thought, then jumped up and paced the cabin like a madman. It had come about as I had many a time feared, but more darkly than ever my imagination had foreboded. The road to Amsterdam Island ran through a hundred and fifty degrees of longitude. Suppose--an incredible suppose!--an average of a hundred and fifty miles a day; two months then in making the island! and afterward? The silver was to be landed and buried, and we should head on for Port Jackson in New Holland, where my throat would be cut if the spirit of murder left the crew a hand to cut my throat withal.

And the money being buried, good-night to my six--my seven thousand pounds--to my fine prospects, my giving up the sea forever, and settling down ashore with a wife. Tulp? God bless you, no. It was not of Tulp I thought. What was he to me? I was no servant of his, under no obligation of fidelity to _him_. It was the six thousand pounds which ran in my head and set my brains boiling--the six thousand and the one bequeathed to me by Greaves.

I paced the cabin like mad. What am I to do? How was I to preserve my share of the dollars? There were eleven, and with me twelve, of us now to the brig’s company; the men were not likely to count Jimmy and the two Spaniards as partners. Teach--was it Teach?--talked of an equal division; _that_ would work out fifty thousand dollars a man; twenty thousand ahead of my present share. They’d promise me more, I daresay--offer me what I chose to take--Yes, and knife me, or drop me overboard in the hour of the coast of New Holland heaving into sight.

Nor was that all of it either: I conceived the fifteen tons of silver buried in the island of New Amsterdam: we arrive at Port Jackson: Teach’s friend--think now of the respectability of a friend of Teach!--finds a little schooner. Would the fellows return to the island with me? or would they pick up some cheap ruffian of a navigator, leaving me to wait for them?

If the money was buried my share was gone for good, my life not worth a hair of my beard. What was to be done?

While I paced the cabin I had observed that the men continued to hang about the skylight. I supposed that they were looking at the chart. By this time the skylight lay clear: Jimmy came below with the bag of charts and the pair of compasses; I heard the voices of men singing out in pull-and-hauling choruses, and the brig heeled over a little.

There hung under the seat that Greaves used to occupy a tell-tale compass: I looked at it and found the brig’s course east by south. I immediately went on deck and found the yards braced forward and both watches hauling down the larboard studding sail. Bol walked the quarter-deck and Galen was shouting orders from the forecastle.

“Who’s captain here?” said I, stepping up to the great Dutchman.

“You, Mr. Fielding.”

“What are you doing with the brig?”

“Heading her off for Amsterdam Island.”

“So. Then you know your way there?”

“No, sir. Der shart explains dot der island vhas in der east: so east it vhas mit der brig till ve vhas goodt friendts, Mr. Fielding, und shake hands und agree. And maybe he vhas all right mit you now, sir,” he added, looking at me out of the corner of his little eyes.

“I want time to consider,” said I, realizing my extreme helplessness, and by that realization urged more than half-way to the acceptance of my fate, whatever it might prove, without further struggle.

“Mr. Fielding,” cried Bol, throwing out his arms and addressing me in that posture, “vhat vhas it how he vhas mit der brig und mit Mynheer Tulp while she vhas all right mit _you?_ Mindt, I doan say dot if der captain had lif dot dere vhas no trouble. Vhat?” he shouted, in a voice of thunder: “a leedle footy sum of sixty tousand dollar for all us men vhen Tulp vhas to get der half of der half million and you yourself, Mr. Fielding, maybe vhas to take but a leedle less dan Captain Greaves herself. Vhas it right?” He thumped his bosom. “Vhas she a beesiness dot vhas good ash between man and man?” He thumped his bosom again. “Vhas not you a sailor? Vhas not der sailor gruelly used? Vhas she not right to stand up for herself when der shance comes? Mr. Fielding, in der sight of der crew, gif me your hand und shake mit me und ve vhas der happiest of families from dis hour.”

“I’ll not give you my hand. I want time to think.” His face darkened. I continued: “If I refuse to navigate the brig to Amsterdam Island and on to Port Jackson, what then?”

Wirtz, who was at the wheel, hearing this, called out in Dutch. Yan Bol gazed at him slowly, then leisurely brought his face to bear upon mine and eyed me fixedly.

“Mr. Fielding,” he said, slowly, “I likes to shake you by der hand und it vhas a good ting to be a happy barty. But if you doan navigate us you vhas of no use, und we puts you into dot boat mit der two Spaniards und sends you away, hoping dot it shall be well mit us all.”

* * * * *

I remained in my berth during the greater part of that afternoon. I was nearly mad and afraid to trust myself on deck. The insult, let alone the significance, of Bol’s threat to send me adrift with the two Spaniards, was crushing, because it found me entirely helpless. Bligh, of the _Bounty_, had been so served; others who deserved far better usage at the hands of their crew than Bligh, of the _Bounty_, had been put into boats in mid-ocean and dispatched to their doom. In the next hour I might find myself adrift with the two Spaniards, the brig a white gleam on the horizon, the lady Aurora alone with the crew, the money as utterly lost to me as if it had gone to the bottom.

So I remained in my berth and thought, and all the afternoon I sat thinking till the evening darkened upon the port-hole, till the fire had gone out of my blood, and the machinery of the brain worked calmly.

Thrice, or perhaps four times, did Miss Aurora beat upon my cabin door and call my name. I heard her ask the lad Jimmy if I was ill, if I was mad, what had happened, why did the Señor Fielding hide himself? The half-witted boy knew not how to answer her. She knocked upon my door again. I told her that I was hard at work, and promised to join her presently.

When the dusk fell, I opened the door of my berth and entered the cabin. I stepped at once to the tell-tale compass, and saw that the brig’s course was still east by south. The lamp was alight and the meal of the evening was upon the table. The breeze was light, the heel of the brig trifling. I guessed she was under the same canvas I had left her clothed in at noon. I saw the stars shining through the skylight glass, and heard a steady trudge of feet overhead, as of two men, perhaps three, walking the quarter-deck. I looked round for the lady Aurora, and, while I did so, her white dress, with its fanciful decoration of bunting, filled the companion way, and she came down. Her eyes were bright, her looks without excitement or alarm, her cheeks faintly colored by the breath of the evening air she was fresh from. It was clear--I saw it in her--she knew nothing of what had passed.

“At last, señor,” said she, approaching as though to give me her hand.

She stopped, looked at me earnestly, and slightly wagged her head in a strange foreign way.

“You are ill?” she said.

“No; I am hungry. Let us sup.”

She removed her hat. I helped her to take off her jacket. While this was doing she was silent. She took her seat in silence, and viewed me without speech, reflecting in her own face the expression in mine, as I might suppose, for now was her look of ease gone. I waited until we had eaten and drunk, occasionally breaking the silence by commonplace remarks; then, closing my knife and fork, and draining my mug, I looked up at the skylight, round at the companion way, leaned my head on my elbow across the table, and told my companion, as best I could, what had happened, and what was still happening, aboard us.

Her intelligence was so keen, she was so apt in the interpretation of my looks and gestures, so quick in collecting the meaning of my words, that I found no difficulty in making her understand. She exclaimed often in Spanish; the shadows of many emotions swept her face; she stared with horror when she understood that the men meant I should carry the brig to the Indian Ocean, and that the vessel’s head was already pointed, according to their notions of navigation, for the Island of Amsterdam. But she received the news with a degree of calmness that was an astonishment and a reproach to me when I thought of my own distraction. I scarcely imagined she grasped the full meaning of the crew’s intention, till, pointing downward, by which she signified the brig’s hold, she said:

“The _Casada_ had a demon on board. It is now the spirit of this ship.”

This she conveyed in Spanish and English. I understood her.

“Yet I mean to keep a hold of that demon,” said I, thinking aloud rather than talking to her. “I’d put the vessel ashore sooner than let the scoundrels plunder me of my share and divide--Jesus Maria! only think!--fifteen tons of dollars among them!” and I smote the table with my fist, and the blood, hot as flame, flushed my face.

Then the following conversation passed between us, managed as before. I give you the clear sense picked out of the interruptions, gestures, sentences, and looks:

“What shall you do, Señor Fielding?”

“Advise me.”

“I--a poor, helpless woman, ignorant of the sea? Yet does it not seem to you that, unless you comply, they will send you away with Antonio and Jorge.”

“Yes.”

“Then you will comply.”

“And after?”

“After?” she cried. “Who knows? Many things may happen to deliver us from this dreadful situation; but, if you defy the crew, and they put you and my countrymen into a boat, we are surely lost.”

I assented with a gesture.

“They are ignorant of navigation?” said she.

“Utterly.”

“Could not you steal the brig to a part of some coast where we are likely to fall in with ships of war?”

“If they suspected treachery they’d hang me at the yardarm.”

“Ave Maria! Where is this New Holland?”

“It is very far from here.”

“How far?”

“It may be four months and perhaps five months from this place.”

“Mother of God! Is Spain to be reached from New Holland?”

“Yes, but the world grows old before such voyages are ended.”

She cast down her gaze in thought. The noise of the tramp of footsteps had ceased; I reckoned we were being watched, but I would not lift up my eyes to know. I rose and paced the cabin, having formed my resolution; and now I considered with whom of the crew I should speak. I abhorred Yan Bol for the horrible threat he had uttered, for the enormous insult that threat implied, and I dared not put myself alone with him--yet. I went to the companion ladder and called up the hatch for Jimmy; my cry was re-echoed, and in a minute or two the boy made his appearance.

“Tell Friend to come to me--here.”

“Señor Fielding,” said the lady Aurora, “you will comply with the men’s requests?” I motioned an assent. “If not we are lost. I have been thinking. You are in their power. _Paciencia!_ If they send you away, I--I--Aurora de la Cueva--” and in pronouncing her name she touched her breast two or three times, “am alone with men who will be the murderers of you and my countrymen. I count upon your protection. Think of me alone in this ship with your men.”

She clasped her hands and turned her dark and shining eyes upon the little stand of muskets. A peculiar expression slightly curled her lip as she looked at those weapons.

“I’ll not leave you.”

She put her forefinger to her mouth, and at that moment I saw a man’s legs in the hatch.

“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?”

“Dunno, sir.”

“Was he a convict?”

“Dunno, sir.”

“You think this a devilish clever scheme, don’t you?”

“It’ll come off--it’ll come off,” he answered.

“I’ll work you up twenty safer, surer, and easier schemes than that,” said I.

“Maybe; we likes our’n,” he answered, with a quiet grin and a slow look at the lady Aurora, who was listening with the strained, vexed, impatient look of one who hears but understands little of what passes.

“Amsterdam Island is in the Indian Ocean,” said I.

“So they say.”

“No vessel under three hundred tons may navigate the Indian seas. Do you know that?”

“When I was in a Company’s ship I think I heerd something of the sort, but there’s no law where Amsterdam Island is, and if there was--we aren’t pirates, anyhow;” and he made as if he would rise.

“It’s a damnably wicked scheme, a hanging scheme, and as stupid as it’s wicked. D’ye know what Yan Bol told me to-day?... Friend, I’m an Englishman talking to an Englishman; and this threat is an accursed Dutchman’s. Yan Bol told me to-day that if I refused to navigate the brig to Amsterdam Island, you men would send me adrift in one of the boats, along with the two Spaniards.”

“Mr. Fielding,” he exclaimed earnestly, “it was talked of--it is talked of. You’ll be making it mere talk, sir. I’m for working this traverse on the smooth. Let good will grease the ways, says I. Why, aint it for you as well as for us? You’re no servant of Tulp’s, and the captain is gone dead, and if we says, ‘Here stow more’n the allowance of dollars ye was to have, only steer us true and take a sheepshank in your tongue,’ who wouldn’t be you? It’s easy terms for a swilling measure. And that’s my sentiments straight.”

“You can go forward, Friend,” said I, “and tell Mr. Yan Bol and the men that I have thought the matter over, that I consent to remain captain of the brig, and to navigate her to Amsterdam Island.”