TREASURE
Broken bits of gold like the twigs from which jewelled fruit had been
torn, spinels, peridots, star sapphires, slab-shaped emeralds, cinnamon
stones, a black pearl shaped like a pear, diamonds, an enormous
turquoise _de la vieille roche_ sun-stricken, coloured, flashing, the
treasure of Simon Serpente lay before Gaspard, other treasure there
doubtless had been in coin and gold, but this was the cream of it,
skimmed by Sagesse, selected no doubt during that calm behind which the
sailor’s eye had seen the approaching hurricane.
Loot from the towns of Spanish South America, from ships plundered and
scuttled, from women and from altars, all lay here in a confusion of
colours. Some of these stones absolutely shouted of sacrilege, huge,
and splendid, never could they have been worn as jewellery, except by
emperors or by jewelled saints in the twilit and incense-laden air of
some cathedral. Gaspard knew little of precious stones, but a child or
a savage would have guessed the worth of this amazing collection of
gems. For a moment after he had turned them out of the handkerchief,
his breath came in gasps like the breath of a person dashed with cold
water. He could not touch them for a moment, it was as though he were
afraid of shattering an illusion. Then came the thought:
They are mine.
He curled his fingers, his lips drew back from his teeth, then he
laughed.
They are mine.
He banged his right hand, palm down on the sand beside him, then he
clapped his knees with both hands, then, stretching out his hand he
seized a wine-coloured amethyst. It was the least valuable stone of the
lot, but it was lovely and it lay in his palm like a little lake of
colour. He felt its smoothness, turned it about, touched it with his
tongue as if he wanted to taste its beauty as well as feel and see it.
It was his, all these things were his and as the thought came back to
him he sprang to his feet and with the amethyst in his left hand and
his right hand shading his eyes, he looked wildly around him.
Yes, he was alone, no one was watching him; no one was there to dispute
his possession; the wind blew and the bay-cedar bushes bent before
the wind, the sun shone, the sea burned blue and flashed beneath the
sun. In all the island world there was no sign or sound of life save
the flickering wings of the cormorants on the northern beach and
occasionally their cries.
Loneliness no longer had terrors for him, the sight of a ship at this
moment would have flung him into consternation. He, the man who had
flung himself face downward in the tent weeping at the thought that
it might be months before a ship sighted the island and took him off
to begin his long journey back to Martinique and Marie, would, had he
sighted a sail at this moment, have cursed it.
With the knowledge of possession had come the fear of dispossession.
He had not forgotten Marie, he had not foregone his desire to return
to Martinique, but in the first wonderful hours with his treasure, he
wished to be alone, to feel it live under his hand, to make plans as
to safe disposal, to dream for a while the wonderful dream of wealth
here, where there was nothing to disturb him but the gulls and the
waves.
Besides, why should he grieve about Marie now? There was nothing to
stop him from reaching her, the road was clear before him once he
was free from the island, the least of those stones lying there in a
glittering heap would give him his passage to Martinique from the ends
of the earth.
He looked around at the far horizon—not a sail.
As he was standing thus with his hand in his left-hand pocket
containing the pocket-book of Sagesse which he had not yet examined, he
felt something beside the pocket-book. A round, hard disc. It was the
coin he had picked out of the treasure pit. Rich as he was, this was
the only coin in his possession. Then, sitting down on the sand beside
his treasure, he began to sort the stones, arranging them in lines
according to their colour. Some were unset, others had still clinging
to them some fragments of the settings from which they had been broken.
There were seven rubies, all of the true pigeon-blood colour, the least
of these was as large as one’s little finger-nail, the three largest
were immense stones as big as the top of an ordinary man’s thumb above
a line drawn across the base of the nail; it is only in rubies of the
true colour and of this great size that the splendour of precious
stones finds its ultimate expression. There is nothing in the inanimate
world to approach them in magnificence and beauty.
There were seventeen emeralds, ten quite small and inconsiderable, and
seven simply priceless, all save the largest, which was starred and
flawed.
He arranged these beneath the rows of rubies. Then came the diamonds
of which there were forty-eight, not counting the diamond in the ring
lying where he had placed it by the jewelled snake. Some of these
diamonds still had the gold of their settings clinging to them, the six
largest were the size of hazel nuts and of perfect water. In any market
of the world those six diamonds would have fetched thirty thousand
pounds and have given a huge profit to the buyer, seven were about half
the size of hazel nuts, but of these one was blue and it alone was a
little fortune; of the thirty-five remaining three were sherry-coloured
and the remainder pure white.
The great turquoise had no companion, he placed it alone on the sand
beneath the diamonds, and then, under it, he began to arrange the
sapphires; as he was doing it a shadow passed over him, it was the
shadow of a frigate bird, flying heavily, gorged with its feast and
making south; the same wind on which it was drifting brought with it
the clamouring of the cormorants; he rose, glanced around and with
dazed eyes looked over the sea, sweeping the horizon; there was no sign
of smoke or sail and he sat down again to continue the jewelled pattern
on the sand.
He counted the sapphires, two dozen and four there were, varying from
cornflower blue to the blue of night, varying in size from the size
of a pea to the size of a broad bean. He arranged them between the
turquoise. The great amethyst he placed beneath the sapphires, and
under the amethyst the spinels, and peridots, of which there were half
a handful. The pear-shaped black pearl, the only pearl amidst all these
treasures, he placed last.
The white pearl, the ring, and the snake were still lying apart by
themselves; besides the stones arranged in lines there were a few
fragments of gold, bits of settings, which he disregarded.
Then he sat and contemplated the glittering battalions of his treasure.
White, red, blue, the blue of the turquoise, the wine colour of the
amethyst, the black of the pearl, he feasted his eyes on them all.
Then, turning on his back, shutting his eyes and casting his right hand
backwards across them, he laughed.
He could see them almost better with his eyes shut. That was the most
delightful and extraordinary moment in his life, it would have been in
any man’s life; coloured Fortune, real, tangible Fortune, Fortune in
her most beautiful guise at his elbow and the whole blue world before
him; what he would do with it all he did not dream; great houses of the
wealthy people, snow-white yachts that he had seen in the various parts
of the world, the vision of the saloon of the _Rhone_ laid out with cut
glass and flowers arose before him for a moment; all that belonged to
the world of the wealthy, all that world was his now, but he built no
imaginary palaces yet, just for the moment the sensation of possession
was all powerful, he wanted nothing else.
Marie was fully alive and in the background of his mind, and the
knowledge that his wealth would enable him to reach her was there and
formed part of his satisfaction; but he saw nothing truly yet but the
great, blinding light that Fortune was flashing in his eyes.
As he lay, the wash of the waves on the desolate beach, the blowing of
the wind across the bay-cedar bushes, the crying of the frigate birds
and cormorants came to him like sounds heard in a dream.
Then the crying of the birds led his thoughts back to Yves and Yves
led him back to the stokehold. He could hear the roar of the furnaces
and the boom of the sea, the clatter of the ash lift, the clash of
the furnace doors. The vision of Fortune had driven all that from his
mind. In the last couple of hours, he had passed through an amazing
development; all the nobility and pride in his nature had been
quickened into life, latent powers until now unsuspected were awakening
in his being, wealth, and the power of wealth were at his disposal. He
felt like some exiled king who had at last come to his own, and then,
lo and behold, like some horrible poor relation into his dream stepped
the stoker of the _Rhone_. Gaspard Cadillac, the Moco, came to spoil
the dreams of Gaspard Cadillac, the wealthy man. Wealth, that thing for
which we all crave, had been in his possession scarcely an hour when it
hit him a blow.
“Hi, there, you dog of a Moco, hurry your stumps, down to your furnace,
_vite!—vite!—vite!_”
Those words had been shot at him by Cuillard, the chief engineer of the
_Rhone_ as he had come aboard across the Messagerie wharf at Marseilles
before starting. They were nothing to a stoker, but the remembrance of
them was bitter now, flame-like hatred against Cuillard shot up in his
breast, till he remembered that Cuillard was silent forever out there
where the _Rhone_ was lying by the reef to southward. But that thought
gave him no relief against the past that Cuillard’s words had evoked.
That wretched past! No present wealth could atone for all those years
of his life and their slavery. Yet only a few hours ago that past had
seemed not amiss!
Truly the lamp of fortune lights many things besides happiness.
He sat up and looked at his hands. They were the hands of a stoker and
nothing on earth would make them anything else. He was not ashamed of
them, he was not thinking that in the future those hands would proclaim
him what he was. No, but he was thinking of the black years those hands
had done slave’s work whilst here was lying the wealth that would have
raised him to a high position in the world. Ah! could he have bought
those fifteen years back, he would at that moment have given half of
the glittering stones to Time, utterly forgetting that in that bargain
he would have lost a white pearl beyond all earthly jewels—Marie.
The wind had been falling and now was little more than a steady breeze,
afternoon was upon the island and the sea was falling with the ebbing
tide. He gathered his fortune together into the handkerchief that had
contained it, then he placed this for extra security into his own
handkerchief. He knotted the corners tightly and then placed the little
bundle by the stem of the palm tree nearest him; he placed the snake
of gold beside the bundle, the ring on his finger, and the great white
pearl in his right-hand pocket.
Then he remembered Sagesse’s pocket-book. He took it out and opened it.
It contained only papers all wet with sea water and a note on the Bank
of France for five hundred francs. He placed the note on the sand with
a piece of coral on it to prevent the wind from blowing it away. The
sun would dry it. Then he tried to examine the papers, they seemed of
no use or importance to him, some were letters with the ink all blurred
by the sea water, there were insurance certificates, an old theatre
bill of a play performed years ago at a New York theatre, and in one
packet a photograph with, on the back, the photographer’s name.
Nadan, Photographer. Rue Royale, Nimes.
It was the photograph of a woman, an old peasant woman to judge by the
face and cap. Could it have been the man’s mother? as likely as not.
And he had prized it evidently or he would not have given it a place
in his pocket-book. Why had he kept the theatre bill? Of what romance
or villainy was it the reminiscence, of what woman betrayed or man
defrauded did he keep it as a memento to be read by Gaspard here, where
to the crying of the cormorants, the past of man seemed a game futile
and filled with derision. A play of shadows—tricking shadows.
He put the photograph and the theatre bill back in the pocket-book, and
the papers; then he made a hole in the sand and buried it. To destroy
the past of Sagesse utterly was the greatest act that Gaspard could
have performed for humanity, failing that, to bury the records of it
was a commendable deed.
He had a flint and steel and the tobacco in his own tobacco box had
almost escaped wetting in the drenching of the night before. He filled
his pipe and lit it, he had not smoked that day nor the day before
and the tobacco, now, had a doubly soothing action on his mind, it
chased away the stokehold and his recollections of the past, he forgave
Sagesse his villainies, it brought the image of Marie from away across
all those miles of ocean, he saw again the early morning market on
the Place du Fort. Pierre-Alphonse, M. Seguin, and all the gay crowd
beneath the blue sky and the dark green tamarinds.
He would find out Pierre-Alphonse when he returned and buy him a
boat of his own, he would set Marie’s father up again in business at
Morne Rouge, he would give money to all those people whom Sagesse had
defrauded, he would make St. Pierre happy. That good town where the
people had been so good to him. Then he would return to Montpellier,
at least for a time, and take Marie with him, they would travel first
class in the mail boat. He would go down to the stokehold as passengers
sometimes did, ah! the stokers on that ship would have a good time when
they reached Marseilles. He would go to the Riga tavern and call for
a chopin of wine and see Anisette serve it. Ah, Yves, poor Yves, what
a pity that he could not take the great, burly Breton by the hand and
give him a fist full of money—so he lay smoking, playing with coloured
shadows, spending phantom gold, whilst the voices of the cormorants
half unheard, came on the wind across the bay-cedar bushes and the
voices of the waves answered them like eternity making answer to time.
Then came the thought, “All that is very well, but how are you to turn
your fortune into gold?”
This had not occurred to him before, and at first it seemed a simple
matter, just a detail, then he remembered Sagesse’s words about
governments who were apt to interfere in cases of treasure, men who
sprang from nowhere with fictitious claims. Sagesse was afraid of these
things and Sagesse was a clever man with thirty years of experience
behind him.
To go to a jeweller with those things would be to admit at once the
whole secret; to go to a pawn shop with the smallest of those gems
would bring on his head enquiries that might prove fatal.
Here was a question to perplex a stoker’s mind. His strong hands could
fight to protect his treasure, but of what avail was it to protect a
useless thing?
He had read the romance of Monte Christo, few French sailors have not,
the immortal story that has become part of the history of the world was
recalled by him here, lost and alone on the desolate islet of whose
existence the great Dumas had never dreamed.
But it gave him little help. He had lived his life in a more sordid
prison than that which held Edmund Dantès for fourteen years. That
black cell of the Château d’If had been illuminated by the mind of
Faria; the profound intelligence of the Abbé had given the future
count not only his treasure, but the genius and the worldly knowledge
which enabled him to dispose of it and turn it to account. Gaspard
had no such teaching to guide him. The more he thought of the matter
the more did his perplexity increase. The world of a sudden seemed to
him peopled with robbers, antagonists, men who would take from him by
fraud, or law, the thing which was at once his dream and his possession.
The curse of the imaginative mind came on him with full force, the
faculty that had once caused a ghost to haunt him on the islet now
filled the world with living people and each person an enemy. He
pictured men whom he had never seen, not men of his own class, but men
dressed as well-to-do citizens, merchants, and so forth, all sworn
enemies to him and eager for his treasure. He had once been in a law
court, called as a witness in a shipping disaster case; he saw that
court now, and the three judges, he was standing before them and they
were questioning him.
“Well, where did you get these things? Come, now, they are not yours;
you do not find these things in a stokehold.”
He sweated at the thought.
Sagesse had spoken of taking the stuff to America; he knew nothing of
America. Martinique was the only place he could take it to, the only
place he wanted to reach, and, at once, the remembrance of Martinique
brought up the image of M. Seguin. Ah! That was the solution. M. Seguin
would help him. He had all the worldly knowledge necessary.
For a moment he was satisfied with this way out of the difficulty, and
he began to doubt—not to doubt, exactly, but to hold up M. Seguin’s
image before his mind’s eyes and to question it. “You are a reliable
man, I know that, for you are universally respected in St. Pierre; but
this treasure—look you, it is enormous, and remember, it is all mine;
I don’t want to give anyone half shares; I just want some one to turn
it into money, letting them take a good profit on the transaction,
certainly, but not letting them rob me; would you do this for me? Could
I trust you?”
The mental image of M. Seguin, after the fashion of images, made no
reply. That hatful of gems, those blazing diamonds, furious rubies,
saint-tempting sapphires, all that coloured temptation, who was there
in the world that might not yield to it? Only one person that he
knew—surely—Marie.
Ah! Could she have peddled them with her other wares, how gladly he
would have cast them into her lap without count or toll, but she of all
people in the world was most useless for his purpose.
He rose and paced the sands with Fortune, like the Old Man of the Sea,
on his back; even in his walk up and down the desolate beach he was
tethered by his treasure, for he dared not go far from that magnetic
bundle lying by the palm bole; it was absurd to feel uneasy, he knew
that; there was no person here to steal it; all the same, it held him
close to it.
Now the sun, which had been steadily sinking, touched the western edge
of the sea and spilled his glory upon the water, the blue and windy day
died and passed at a stroke to the momentary evening of the tropics,
and the evening into night.