SUSPICIONS
From the Dead Man’s Chest the _Royal James_ headed northwest into the
Atlantic. Murray knew that the _Santissima Trinidad_ must have sent
the tidings of his feat the length and breadth of the Antilles. By
now the Spanish squadrons would have put to sea from San Juan de
Porto Rico, Santo Domingo and the Havana, and the Caribbean would be
aswarm with _garda costas_; but more to be feared than all the
Spaniards’ efforts would be the consequence of the complaint sure to
be dispatched to the port admiral at Kingston. The Jamaica frigates
would carry a hunting-call to every English cruiser on the West
Indian station.
As it was, we were chased by a strange sail in the latitude of
southern Hispaniola, whose heaping canvas and lumbering gait bespoke
the ship-o’-the-line; and off Cuba we sighted three sail--a frigate
and two sloops--who chased us two days and a night to the eastward.
And the day after that we encountered the Brazils fleet, under convoy
of two sail of the line and half a dozen small fry, but my
great-uncle, nothing daunted, displayed his white ensign, fired a
salute to the Portuguese admiral and sailed through them.
Then we picked up a smart so’easter and ran our westing down
packet-fashion, with never a sail in sight for a week, until a
morning when the sun came up at our backs like a burnished copper
plaque and we saw the cone of the Spyglass lifting out of the haze
ahead. A league or two farther on the whole island shaped itself
beneath its spine of hills, and a column of smoke from the Spyglass
told us that Flint’s lookout had detected us.
The wind had continued strong through the night, but after dawn it
turned puffy and ’twas nearly noon when we passed into Captain Kidd’s
Anchorage on the last of the flood. There was a great bustle aboard
the _Walrus_, with boats plying to and from the shore, and as our
anchor splashed, the longboat put off from her side, Flint’s red coat
like a flame in the stern sheets.
“Glory!” exclaimed Moira O’Donnell, her blue eyes wide with delighted
horror. “There’s one I’d not need to have pointed out to me to know
him a pirate--or the dreadful knaves that do be rowing the oars. My
faith, look to the color of them, as red as Indians with the sun, and
they without the clothes any heathen would be by way of wearing.”
She clapped her hands.
“But I like the kerchiefs on their heads. See! All red and green
and yellow and blue. And the marks they have done in their skins.”
Her father was otherwise impressed. He glowered down at the heap of
treasure kegs, chests and packages which Murray had ordered fetched
on deck that morning, and then stared off at Flint’s gaudy figure.
“And ’tis to scoundrels like yon ye’ll be trusting the lives of all
of us, Andrew Murray!” he snarled. “By times, man, I think there’s a
green madness in your brain. Why, the view of that gold and silver
below would be sufficient to tempt better men than they to commit
murder.”
My great-uncle took snuff.
“Your diagnosis is correct, _chevalier_,” he retorted. “They would
cheerfully commit murder for a coveted knife or a sixpence with a
hole in it. My design in revealing to them the entire extent of the
treasure we carry is to impress them at once with my good faith and
benumb their acquisitive faculties by the sight of greater wealth
than they ever dreamed of obtaining at one time.”
A snort from Peter diverted attention to the Dutchman.
“You do not agree with me?” inquired Murray mildly.
“_Neen_! A t’ief is a t’ief. He steals to steal.”
“Plausible,” assented my great-uncle. “Your idea is?”
“If Flint has der feel for it it don’t matter what you show him. He
wants all.”
“Ah!”
Murray regarded more attentively the boatload of pirates just
rounding up to our port quarter.
“I see that Captain Flint has with him John Silver and the red-haired
Irish boy he calls his luck. Humph! You may be right, friend Peter.
But I should not be greatly concerned over that. In many ways----”
He broke off, considering. Colonel O’Donnell caught him up.
“Yes? Yes? What new deviltry are you planning?”
My great-uncle smiled.
“Certes, ’tis no deviltry to plan in a good cause--in the Good Cause.
Eh, Mistress Moira?”
She shook her head.
“You will be took quick with your wits for me to fathom them, Master
Murray,” says she. “I am but a young maid that knows no more than
that right is right.”
“I protest you underrate yourself,” he answered.
“What Moira thinks is of no consequence,” interrupted O’Donnell.
“You have not answered me.”
“True, _chevalier_. I was thinking. My thoughts are not completely
shapen, but ’twill do no harm if I reveal that it occurred to me that
in many ways it might simplify our problem did Captain Flint resort
to force.”
The Irishman counted the gunports in the _Walrus’_ side.
“He seems to carry as heavy metal----”
“But on the sea, as on the land, ’tis the brain which overmatches
brute force, _chevalier_. You, who are an engineer, do not need to
be reminded of this axiom. However, we are not yet come to the
issue, and I am never one for engaging in a search for trouble. All
I know clearly at this moment is that we can not afford to wander far
afield from the island, with the cruisers of three nations quartering
the seas for us.”
“We are in an _impasse_,” reflected O’Donnell gloomily.
“Not at all,” rejoined my great-uncle. “We have played our hand with
entire success so far in the game. ’Tis now for us to sit back and
await the plays of other participants. What they do must determine
our next-- But Captain Flint is come aboard. This conversation is
without purpose, since fact must now displace conjecture.”
He eyed us all somewhat gravely.
“I have but one word more to say,” he added. “Whatever happens,
leave me to do the talking.”
“Ye’d do it whether we would or no,” growled O’Donnell.
Flint climbed over the bulwarks with a racket of oaths and swaggered
up to the poop. Martin dropped a whip from a block on the mainyard,
and John Silver was hauled up in its bight, his crutch hanging from
his neck. Darby and the rest scaled the side ladder and mingled with
the _James’_ crew. Their eyes popped from their heads as they
circled the heap of treasure, Long John stumping with them, listening
avidly to the accounts of the _James’_ men, hefting the weight of the
packages of bullion and painfully deciphering the inscriptions on the
kegs and chests of coin.
Their chief was equally frank in revealing the lust of greed the
picture wakened in him. His green eyes flickered hotly on either
side of his thin, beaked nose, and his blue jowl was bluer than ever,
the weather-worn skin over his cheekbones laced with a network of
crimson veins that brightened as his excitement increased.
Yet he forgot the treasure the instant his gaze fell upon Peter and
me.
“So your hostages returned to ye, Murray? Gut me, ’twas a pretty
trick ye played us! Ye’d keep faith wi’ me, ye would! Oh, yes!
Ye’d give me two hostages, instead o’ one. You’ll fulfill your
contract, you will. There’s no need for it, to be sure, but ye’ll do
anything to prove good faith to me! And take both or none, says you.
Both or none! Well, ye fooled me that time, Murray, but ye never
will again, by thunder--not if my name’s John Flint!”
My great-uncle heard him out in silence, waiting until he had stepped
off the poop-ladder and stood facing us.
“I am not responsible for your losing the hostages,” he replied then
in his iciest tones. “Stap me, Flint, I warned you your ship was in
a disgraceful condition. With all hands drunk, did you think to keep
fast two men of strength and intelligence?”
“Drunk or sober, we were promised them,” asserted Flint, a trifle
less belligerently. “And sure, ye could ha’ turned ’em back to
us--not that that will do me any good for the two men they killed,
they or whoever helped ’em to break from the _Walrus_.”
“Nobody from the _Royal James_ assisted them,” said Murray. “You
have my word for that. I can not say as much for your own ship,
although they told me when they discovered themselves to me, several
days after our sailing, that they had acted alone.”
“Alone or not, where’s my two men?” blustered Flint. “Good hands
don’t grow on trees.”
“No; aboard the _Walrus_ they stab one another to death,” agreed my
great-uncle. “Come, come, you have no proof in support of your
charge.”
“No proof?” howled Flint. “These two broke out of my lazaret, and
the same night the two men on watch----”
My great-uncle raised his eyebrows.
“Tut, tut! Really, now! ‘Two men on watch!’ What would you have?
John Silver and Blind Pew could have escaped from such slender
guards, let alone two whole men, one of them the strongest ever I
knew.”
“Well, two broke free and two died,” insisted Flint. “And if the two
who broke free were not the means----”
“What proof have you of it?”
“Proof?”
“Aye, proof, I said. Their bodies, what of them?”
“Why, we never----”
My great-uncle shrugged his shoulders.
“You see? You have been talking loosely, I fear, my friend. But you
must suffer me to repeat that if you left your ship all night with a
watch of two men on deck you deserved to lose your hostages and the
lives of the watch. At any rate, you’ll not have my sympathy.”
Flint’s fingers twitched on his hanger-hilt.
“I tell ye, Murray, there’s a foul smell about this whole business.
You were all for giving me hostages--’twas no idea of mine. And then
they no sooner come aboard my ship than they’re away again. I like
it not. Here’s trickery or ye may gut me for a preacher.”
“Had I found your hostages on the _James_ before sailing or within a
day after, you should have had them back again,” said Murray firmly.
“But there is no point to this argument; for hostages or no hostages,
you see me returned with the treasure, as I promised.”
“---- me, ye’ve been long enough gone,” complained Flint. “It hath
been a month more than ye promised.”
“For that I had excellent reasons,” answered my great-uncle. “I was
chased twice on my way hither.”
Flint was impressed by this--also, his eyes strayed, as if lured by a
magnet of irresistible power, back to the heap of treasure on the
deck below.
“Ye must ha’ had rare success,” he admitted unwillingly. “We ha’ the
gold o’ the Indies here!”
He looked up and happened to meet the awe-struck gaze of Moira
O’Donnell. A sneer curled his lips.
“But ye carry passengers, I see,” he insinuated. “Gold and women!
’Tis a fine combination, Murray, but there’s a rule in our Articles
you were all for establishing. Number Four, eh? It sticks in my
crop, for ye called it once on me.
“‘And that there may be less occasion for broils amongst our company,
we do further decree that gaming may be prohibited at any time when
in the captain’s judgment it becomes dangerous to our harmony, as
likewise, that at no time and under no circumstances may women be
taken and kept as spoil aboard our vessels or any vessel upon which
our company may chance to fare.’
“What d’ye say to that? What of Rule Four now?”
“I wish it was observed as strictly aboard the _Walrus_ as on the
_Royal James_” returned Murray. “As to gaming, it seems that you
allow your crew full license.”
“I’ll govern my own ship,” responded Flint sourly. “Ye ha’ yet to
answer my questions.”
My great-uncle took snuff.
“This lady,” he said, with the slightest emphasis, “is the daughter
of my friend here, Colonel O’Donnell, a gentleman who represents in
our venture the group of my friends who made it possible for me to
intercept the treasure-ship.”
O’Donnell, whose face had been growing redder and redder throughout
this conversation, plucked his daughter by the elbow and led her away.
“I’ll be thanking ye to let me know when the time comes there’s an
end o’ mangy curs in these parts,” he remarked over his shoulder.
“’Tis not to be hearing my daughter insulted and my own self
explained to the scum of the sea that I’ll be standing quiet and idle
in front of as----”
“Peace, _chevalier_!” interrupted Murray, and there was a ring in his
voice that compelled obedience.
Flint’s blue jowl took on a sickly greenish pallor and the tiny veins
over his cheekbones commenced to beat.
“---- me for a ---- ---- ---- if I’ll stand for such from any
sneaking, longjawed, Irish Papist ----”
“That will do,” said my great-uncle without raising his voice.
Flint subsided.
“Colonel O’Donnell and his daughter are my guests,” my great-uncle
continued. “They have played essential parts in our capture of the
treasure. I must insist, Flint, that you accord them a courtesy
similar to that which I should extend to friends of yours in a like
situation.”
“They’re no friends o’ mine,” growled Flint. “This is more o’ your
cursed political blethering. Well, I’m sick o’ it, Murray, and I
care not who knows it. First, ye carry us north to America, just to
crimp two men, with not two hundred pounds in booty to show for the
voyage. Next, ye shut me up here for the better part of six months
for my men to rot with fever and drink and my ship to foul her
bottom----”
“On both these counts you have your own negligence to blame,” put in
my great-uncle.
“--and last,” Flint fumed on without heeding him, “ye bring to the
Rendeyvoo a man and a woman who are not of our company, and who, for
all ye know, may go hence, and loose a King’s ship on us some day
when we are careened and helpless.”
“Not you,” returned Murray sarcastically. “You’ll not careen, Flint.
That would mean work for your crew. But you concern yourself
needlessly. Colonel O’Donnell has reasons for keeping his share in
our enterprise under cover. He is more safely to be trusted in the
circumstances than many another.”
“I care not who he is or what you may have on him,” cried Flint,
working himself into a fury. “Ye ha’ introduced four strangers into
our midst without the let or permission of others of our company.”
“I do not recognize the right of any other to tell me what I shall or
shall not do,” replied my great-uncle haughtily. “Such as it is,
this company is the creation of my efforts, and I venture the
assertion, Captain Flint, that it will not long survive my
leadership. The four strangers of whom you complain have been
essential factors in enabling me to win the treasure before
you--which now awaits your convenience for division, according to the
terms I originally stipulated.”
If Murray’s last words were intended to stimulate Flint’s cupidity
anew they succeeded. The captain of the _Walrus_ opened his mouth to
shout defiance, then let his eyes wander again to the pile under the
break of the poop.
“How--how much?” he asked, almost fearfully.
“Seven hundred and sixty-three thousand, nine hundred and ninety-five
pounds in coin and bullion, without counting a chest of jewels and
three chests of plate,” replied my great-uncle promptly. “You will
note that I have favored our people in the division, allotting to
them all in excess of the million and a half pounds the _Santissima
Trinidad_ was expected to carry.”
A cunning look crept into Flint’s face.
“Where’s the rest?” he croaked.
My great-uncle took snuff.
“Quite safely disposed of, I assure you,” he answered.
“Down below?”
“No, ’tis no longer aboard.”
Flint swallowed hard.
“Ye mean it ain’t here? It ain’t aboard the _James_?”
“Precisely, captain.”
“Gut me!” roared Flint. “Ye divided it by your lone? Wi’out a man
from the _Walrus_ to stand by and see fair play? I’ll not support
it, Murray. Curse me if I will!”
My great-uncle tapped his snuff-box.
“Your suspicions are quite unnecessary,” he said. “Had I intended to
defraud you, be sure I would not have enlarged the sum intended for
division betwixt the two ships by sixty-three thousand pounds and
more. Indeed, figuring in the jewels and plate, there must be an
excess of better than one hundred thousand pounds.”
“I know your tricks!” yelled Flint. “May I be ---- ---- for a ----
---- ---- if any lousy swab of a sea-lawyer politician is a-goin’ to
cast dust in my eyes. ’Twould be the very thing you’d do, Murray, to
attempt to cozen me into believing seven hundred thousand pounds had
been set aside for your ‘friends’ by throwing in an extra hundred
thousand pounds for our division. ‘Friends!’ By thunder, the only
friend ye know is yourself, ye dried-up wisp of a ----”
“That will do,” said my great-uncle in his still, level voice.
Flint opened and shut his mouth rapidly without a sound issuing forth.
“I bar personalities, captain,” warned my redoubtable relative.
One hand barely touched his sword-hilt.
“I trust there will be no occasion for me to repeat the warning,” he
remarked.
Flint’s baffled rage was comic to behold.
“Aye, you and your fine gentleman ways!” he choked. “I know ye! Gut
me if I’ll support it to be swindled thus. A woman and strangers
aboard! And eight hundred thousand pounds missing! ‘Safely disposed
of,’ says you! I’ll warrant. Safe where you can collar it any time
you please. I knowed it as soon as I marked the flutter of a
petticoat. A woman and gold----”
Long John Silver swung himself up on to the poop from the head of the
port ladder and stamped toward us.
“Beggin’ your pardon, Cap’n Murray, sir!” His pleasant voice broke
through Flint’s diatribe.
“My duty, Master Ormerod. And Master Corlaer, too. Like old times,
ain’t it, gentlemen, all of us together? I hopes as how ye’ll
overlook my boldness, Cap’n Murray, but I ha’ a word to speak to
Cap’n Flint--fo’csle council, sir.”
My great-uncle took another pinch of snuff.
“Ah, yes,” he observed drily. “I recall that aboard the _Walrus_ the
fo’csle council must be heard. I trust that you can instil some
common sense into your captain’s head. He hath need of it, Silver.”
Flint glared, but Silver snatched whatever reply he intended out of
his mouth.
“Thank ’ee, sir. You just let me an’ Cap’n Flint ha’ a word in
private, and maybe we’ll see a way out o’ this tangle.”
“Suit yourself,” said my great-uncle with a shrug.
Silver pulled his forelock, and his large face lighted up as if a
considerable favor had been conferred.
“We won’t be no time at all, sir. Thank ’ee kindly.”
He put his free hand under Flint’s elbow, and I marveled to see the
ease with which he was able to bend his captain to his will.
Accustomed as I was to Murray’s autocratic discipline, it was a
revelation to establish contact again with the free-and-easy spirit
of the _Walrus_, where any man might become commander if he was able
to muster a majority of the fo’csle to raise cutlasses in his behalf.
Flint obediently followed his quartermaster to the sta’b’d side of
the poop, and there they laid their heads close and collogued for a
quarter-glass, Silver at first arguing and Flint resisting him.
“Silver is no man to let hard on four hundred thousand pounds slip
through his hands,” I said.
“Andt maybe he says not to let eight hundred thousand pounds get
away, needer,” commented Peter. “_Ja_, I t’ink so.”
Murray nodded slowly.
“You are more like to be right than wrong, friend Peter. Of all the
_Walrus’_ people he hath the most acute intelligence. A choice
knave!”
Colonel O’Donnell stalked back to us from the extremity of the stern
with Moira on his arm.
“Did ye put a flea in the rascal’s ear, Murray?” he demanded. “By
the Mass, I never thought to hear ye tolerate such impudence on your
own deck.”
“I am no man for quarreling without an adequate end in sight,”
returned my great-uncle. “Never threaten unless you must,
_chevalier_, and then smite with a sure aim.”
“Words!” grumbled the Irishman. “’Tis time we had a little action.”
Moira disengaged herself from her father and came to stand betwixt
Peter and me.
“If there’s to be more fighting,” says she, “I will have a pistol and
cutlass and do my share. I’ll not stand idly by to be shot at the
way I was on the _Santissima Trinidad_--more by reason that if I must
sail with pirates I’ll be preferring Captain Murray to the fellow
yonder in the red coat.”
There was a high gallantry about her that drew a chuckle even from
Peter.
“Some time I take you to der wilderness country, andt we shoot us
bears andt scalp Injuns,” he promised.
She clasped her hands.
“I am all for that, Peter,” she cried. “Sure, I’d sooner fight
Indians than pirates. But see, Bob! There’s the red-headed boy will
be making signals to you from the larboard ladder.”
Darby McGraw’s flaming top-knot projected just far enough above the
level of the deck to show his eyes and a hand that jerked
mysteriously at me.
“Come up, Darby,” I invited him.
But he shook his head vigorously, so I crossed to his side.
“What is ailing you?” I asked.
“Sorra a trouble in the whole of creation,” he returned in his rich
brogue. “But I’d walk my two feet over the galley-stove as soon as
stand so near the old devil as yourself, Master Bob. My troth, he’s
the terrible cruel feller, and him that ancient old he’d oughter been
waked these many years past.”
“He’s no more to be feared than Flint,” I answered, laughing.
“Ah, there’s little ye know to be saying the like of that!” exclaimed
Darby. “With Flint ’tis a blow and a curse and ‘take it or leave
it!’ But him! He’d put the evil eye on the lot of us if the notion
but came into the head of him.”
“I rather be his friend than his enemy,” I admitted. “Do they fear
him so aboard the _Walrus_?”
Darby squinted sideways at me.
“Whiles they fear him. And then again when the rum is flowing-- But
I’ll be saying what maybe I’ll be sorry for later. I see ye found
the elegant young maid that went to the Whale’s Head with ye. My
faith, ain’t she the pretty creature! Will she be a pirate, too?”
“No more than Peter and me.”
“Do ye tell me that same! And ye took her along with the treasure,
the lads do be saying below. That was the grand haul! But they say,
too, a good half of it ye buried on that island Long John do be
always singing about.”
“So you have heard that!” I cried.
“Troth, yes. They was telling Long John and me before he come up to
speak with Cap’n Flint. God save us, who’d think there was so much
money in the world? But here comes John and the cap’n now. I’d
better be skippin’.”
He slid down the ladder as he spoke, and I rejoined the group about
my great-uncle. Flint strode across the deck, his face like a
thunder-cloud. Silver, at his elbow, exhibited a countenance
wreathed in smiles.
“We’ll divide what’s below,” said Flint abruptly.
“I rejoice that you have come to your senses,” replied Murray.
Silver spoke up.
“He’s a main jealous cap’n, Cap’n Flint is, sir. Allus has a lookout
for the interests o’ his crew. A kind o’ gardeen for us, ye might
say. But we’re all mighty beholden to yourself for counting in the
_Walrus_ same as the _James_; and speakin’ on behalf o’ the _Walrus_,
I make bold to say as we won’t forget it, Cap’n Murray, sir.”
My great-uncle listened to this with the shadow of a smile on his
face.
“I thank you, Silver,” he acknowledged blandly. “I was confident you
would appreciate the situation. Will you divide at once, Flint?”
Flint growled in his throat, then mastered his temper by a
substantial effort.
“We’ll appoint the usual committee o’ six to check over with your
men, Murray,” he rasped. “I’ll send my boats to shift our portion.”
And he turned on his heel. John Silver pulled his forelock and
nodded to all of us.
“Thank ’ee kindly, Cap’n Murray. My duty, sirs. And the young lady.
Mighty nice to ha’ a sweet, pretty face in the cabin, ain’t it?
Well, gentlemen, there’s no excuse now for any o’ us if we don’t go
home and make them happy as we left for the sea.”
“Not the slightest,” agreed my great-uncle. “I take it you are
returning to your dear old mother, Silver--or is it your fondly
waiting wife?”
Silver grinned.
“’Tain’t neither, sir. But there’s a sightly gal in St. Pierre in
Martinico as I could set up shop with. A bit o’ color in her, but
then----”
He swept his arm in a liberal gesture as he stumped off to the ladder
and hopped lightly down to the maindeck after his commander.