THE CHART OF MORTALLONE.
While the others drew their chairs closer, and while I spread flat
the parchment--which was crinkled (by the action of salt water,
maybe)--I had time to assure myself that this was the selfsame chart
of which Captain Coffin had once vouchsafed me a glimpse.
I remembered the shape of the island, the point marked "Cape
Alderman," the strange, whiskered heraldical monster depicted in the
act of rising from the waves off the north-western coast, the equally
impossible ship, decorated with a sprit-top-mast and a flag upon it,
and charging up under full sail for the southern entry, the name of
which ("Gow's Gulf") I must have missed to read in the short perusal
Captain Coffin had allowed me. At any rate, I could not recall it.
But I recalled the three crosses which showed (so he had told me)
where the treasure lay. They were marked in red ink, and I explained
their meaning to Miss Belcher, who had pounced upon them at once.
"Fiddlestick-end!" said that lady, falling back on her favourite
ejaculation. "Great clumsy crosses of that size! How in the world
could any one find a treasure by such marks, unless it happened to be
two miles long?"
She pointed to the scale at the head of the chart, which, to be sure,
gave six miles to the inch. By the same measurement the crosses
covered, each way, from half a mile to three-quarters. Moreover,
each had patently been dashed in with two hurried strokes of the pen
and without any pretence of accuracy. The first cross covered a
"key" or sand-bank off the northern shore of the island; the second
sprawled athwart what appeared to be the second height in a range of
hills running southward from Cape Alderman, and down along the entire
eastern coast at a mean distance of a mile, or a little over, from
the sea; while the third was planted full across a grove of trees at
the head of the great inlet--Gow's Gulf--to the south, and, moreover,
spanned the chief river of the island, which, running almost due
south from the back of the hills or mountains (their size was not
indicated) below Cape Alderman, discharged itself into the apex of
the gulf.
"Without bearings of some sort," said Miss Belcher, "these marks are
merely ridiculous."
"You may well say so, ma'am," Captain Branscome answered, but
inattentively. "Mortallone--Mortallone," he went on, muttering the
word over as if to himself. "It is curious, all the same."
"What is curious?" demanded Miss Belcher.
"Why, ma'am, I have never myself visited the Gulf of Honduras, but
among seamen there are always a hundred stories floating about.
In a manner of speaking, there is no such shop for gossip as the sea.
In every port you meet 'em, in taverns where sailors drink and brag--
the liquor being in them--and one man talks and the rest listen, not
troubling themselves to believe. It is good to find one's self
ashore, you understand? And a good, strong-flavoured yarn makes
the landlord and all the shore-keeping folk open their eyes--"
"Bless the man!" Miss Belcher rapped her knuckles on the table.
"This is not a 'longshore tavern."
"No, ma'am."
"Then why not come to the point?"
"The point, ma'am--well, the point is that every one--that is to say,
every seaman--has heard tell of treasure knocking about, as you might
put it, somewhere in the Gulf of Honduras."
"What sort of treasure?"
"Why, as to that, ma'am, it varies with the story. Sometimes 'tis
bar silver from the isthmus, and sometimes 'tis gold plate and
bullion that belonged to the old Kings of Mexico; but by the tale
I've heard offtenest, 'tis church treasure that was run away with by
a shipful of logwoodmen in Campeachy Bay. But there again you no
sooner fix it as church treasure, and ask where it came from, than
you have to choose between half a dozen different accounts. Some say
from the Spanish islands--Havana for choice; others from the Main,
and I've heard places mentioned as far apart us Vera Cruz and
Caracas. The dates, too--if you can call them dates at all--vary
just as surprisingly."
"The date on this chart is 1776," said Miss Belcher, who had been
peering at it while the Captain spoke.
"Then, supposing there's something in poor Coffin's secret, that
gives you the year to start from. We'll suppose this is the very
chart used by the man who hid the treasure. Then it follows the
treasure wasn't hidden before 1776, and that rules out all the yarns
about Hornigold, Teach, Bat Roberts, and suchlike pirates, the last
of whom must have been hanged a good fifty years before: though
here's evidence"--Captain Branscome laid a forefinger on the chart--
"that these gentry had dealings with the island in their day.
'Gow's Gulf,' 'Cape Fea'--Gow was a pirate and a hard nut at that;
and Fea, if I remember, his lieutenant or something of the sort; but
they had gone their ways before ever this was printed, and
consequently before ever these crosses came to be written on it.
You follow me, ma'am?"
Miss Belcher gave a contemptuous sniff which, I doubt not, would have
prefaced the remark that an unweaned child would arrive unaided at
the same conclusions; but here I interposed.
"Captain Coffin," said I, "told me that a part of the treasure was
church plate, and that he had seen it. He showed me a coin, too, and
said it came from the island."
"Hey, lad? What sort of coin?"
But to this I could give no answer, except that it was a piece of
gold, and in size perhaps a trifle smaller than a guinea.
"That's a pity, lad. The coin might have helped us. You're sure now
that you can't remember? It hadn't a couple of pillars engraved on
it, for instance?"
I shook my head. I had taken no particular heed of the stamp on the
coin.
Captain Branscome sighed his disappointment.
"The church plate don't help us at all," he said, "or very little.
Why, I've heard this Honduras treasure dated so far back as Morgan's
time, when he sacked Panama. The tale went that the priests at
Panama or Chagres, or one of those places, on fright of Morgan's
coming, clapped all their treasure aboard ship under a guard of
militia--soldiers of some sort, anyway--and that the seamen cut the
soldiers' throats, slipped cable, and away-to-go. But Morgan!
He must have died before Queen Anne was born--well, not so far back
as that maybe, but then or thenabouts. I tell you, ma'am, this story
hangs around every port and every room where seamen gather and drink
and take their ways again. 'Tis for all the world like the smell of
tobacco-smoke, that tells you some one has come and gone, but leaves
you nothing to get hold of. Hallo!--"
As the exclamation escaped him, Captain Branscome, who had casually
picked up a corner of the parchment between finger and thumb, with a
nervous jerk drew the whole chart from under my outspread palms and
turned it over face-downwards.
"Eh? But see here!"
He fumbled with his glasses, while Miss Belcher and I, snatching at
the chart, almost knocked our heads together as we bent over a corner
of it--the left-hand upper corner--and a dozen lines of writing
scrawled there in faded ink. They ran thus--
1. Landed by cuttar when wee saw a sail. Lesser Kay N. of
Gable. Get open water between two kays S.W. and W. by S.,
and N. inner point of Gable (where is green patch, good
watering) in line with white rock (birds), neer as posble.
S. a point E. 3 feet bare, being hurried.
2. Bayse of cliff second hill S.S.W. from Cape Alderman.
Here is bank over 2 waterfals. Neer lower fall, 12 paces
back from egge, getting island open N.E. beyond rock W. of
inlet, and first tree Misery Swamp over Crabtree, W.S.W Bush
above rock to rt of fall. Shaddow 1/4 to 4, June 21st, when
we left digging.
3. R. bank river, 1 and 1/2 mile up from Gow crikke. Centre
tree in clump 5 branch bearing N. and by E. 1/2 point, two
forks. R. fork 4ft. red cave under hill 457yds. foot of tree
N.N.W. N.B.--The stones here, under rock 4 spans L side.
That was all, except two short entries. The first scribbled aslant
under No. 1, and in Captain Coffin's own handwriting--so Captain
Branscome, who knew it, assured us.
N.B.--Took out 5 cases Ap. 5, 1806, besides the boddies.
Avging 3/4 cwt. 1 case jewels. We left the clothes, wh.
were many.
The second entry appeared to have been penned by the same hand as the
original, but more neatly and some while later. The ink, at any
rate, was blacker and fresher. It ran:
S.W. ann. aetat. 37. R.I.P.
The handwriting, though rugged--and the indifferent ink may have been
to blame for this--was well formed, and, but for the spelling, might
have belonged to an educated man.
The reader, if he choose, may follow our example and discuss the
above directions for half an hour--I will warrant with as little
result. Miss Belcher ended by harking back to the summer-house and
to the latest crime--if we might guess, the latest of many--for which
this document had been responsible.
"What puzzles me is this: Since the Major had pockets in his coat,
why should he have hidden the parcel as he did? So small a parcel,
too!"
"Captain Coffin," I suggested, "may have known that he was being
followed."
"Well?"
"And in handing it over he may have warned my father that there was
danger."
"I believe the boy is right," said Captain Branscome. "Now I recall
the Major's face at the moment when I rattled the latch, I feel sure
he was on his guard. Yes--yes, he had been warned against carrying
this on his person--he was wrapping it away for the time--"
"Why, what ails the man?" demanded Miss Belcher, as Captain Branscome
stopped short with a groan.
"I was thinking, ma'am, that but for my visit he might never have
relaxed his guard--that it was I who helped the murderer to take him
at unawares. Nay--worse, ma'am, worse--his last thought may have
been that I was the traitor--that the blow he took was from the hand
he had filled with gold--that I had returned to kill him in his
blindness!"
Captain Branscome bowed his head upon his hands. I saw Plinny--who
all this while had sat silent, content to listen--rise, her face
twitching, and put out a hand to touch the captain's shoulder.
I saw her hand hesitate as her sense of decorum overtook her pity and
seemed to reason with it. And with that I heard the noise of wheels
on the road.
"Hallo!"--Miss Belcher pricked up her ears. "Here's that nuisance
Jack Rogers turning up again!"