CHAPTER XLI.

The End

THE HISPANIOLA PLATE

CHAPTER I.

NICHOLAS CRAFER'S STRANGE WILL.

"Gray's Inn Square, Oct. 20th, 1892.

"My Dear Sir,--In answer to your request, I beg to inform you that the

terms by which you inherit 'Phips House,' at Strand-on-the-Green, from

your late uncle, are as follows--the statement being taken from the

last will and testament of your ancestor Nicholas Crafer, made in the

year 1695:--

'And I do hereby will and bequeathe that ye house called Phips by me,

after my late captain and commander, Sir William Phips, when I

purchased yt from Mr. Clitherow of Branford, do forever remaine in the

possession of some descendant of mine, male or female, the former for

choyce and preference, yet not also debarring, in fault of any bearing

the name of Crafer existinge, those descending from the female side to

succeed. That is to saye, it is to so remaine forever unless through

it whoever doth succeede shall thereinto find the means whereby to

obtain unto themselves a fortune of and equivalint unto the summe of

Fiftie thousand guineas, the which I do hereby testify the meanes are

forthcoming. After whych the house may be disposed of as best

beseemeth those who have so found ye fortune. This, therefore, I say,

"Seeke and ye shall find, knocke and yt shall be opened unto you."'

"This will, in spite of its quaintness, has ever, and will probably

always, hold good, although not law, until one thing occurs of two:

either that the house falls down of old age (which it seemed very

likely to do when I inspected it after your late uncle's decease) or

that some descendant of Commander Nicholas Crafer shall find the means

of making the fortune of 50,000 guineas in or through it--a most

unlikely thing to happen. For, as you know, many generations of

Crafers have searched through the house from basement to garret,

imagining that the original testator meant to hint that somewhere

about it, was hidden away such a sum of money as he mentions; and

always without result. Nor has the ingenuity of one generation after

another ever been able to hit upon any hidden meaning which might be

contained in the words of the will, or to find anything excepting the

scrap of paper once discovered, of which you know; while certainly the

land on which it stands--something under three acres--can hardly ever

become of such value, or one-twentieth part of it.

"But as you know as much about your ancestor as I can possibly tell

you, I need not write further, and I have only to state that, during

your absence abroad, everything has been done to facilitate handing

over the house to you on your return, and I now propose to prove your

uncle's will, and, after the usual formalities, to put you in

possession of Phips House and other property left by him.--Yours

faithfully,

"A. Bentham."

This was the letter which Reginald Crafer read at his breakfast, one

fine autumn morning, as he sat in that good old hostelry, "The

George," at Portsmouth--a letter which he had found at the Naval Club

after his early morning walk on the Battery--a walk taken with the

view of aiding an already exceedingly good appetite, and of having a

look at the waves dancing out at the Nab and sparkling in the bright

October sunshine.

A better specimen of the young lieutenant of to-day than Reginald

Crafer (with "N" after his name to show that he had taken up

navigation as his branch) you might not see in any of her Majesty's

ships. Tall, but not too tall for a sailor; close-shaven, as becometh

the young naval officer of to-day, yet with excellent features that

required nothing in the shape of whiskers or moustache to set them

off; with clear grey eyes and a wholesome sunburnt skin--what more

could a young man desire in the shape of personal gifts? Nay, what

more pleasing a sight to gaze upon than this smart, good-looking young

officer could the heart of a maiden desire?

Now Reginald Crafer--whom at this present moment you see eating

buttered toast and a fried sole, as he reads his lawyer's letter--had

just come home from the China Station in the _Ianthe_ (twin-screw

cruiser, first-class, armoured, 8,400 tons); and she having been paid

off, the young man was on leave for the time being. He had slept at

"The George" overnight for two reasons (ordinarily the naval officer

rushes to London by the first train that will bear him, when once he

has set foot on shore), one being that he wanted to go to a ball at

the Commander-in-Chief's to which the officers of the returned cruiser

were mostly invited; the other, that he expected to find a letter from

the solicitor, Mr. Bentham--which, as you have seen, he did find.

This letter was in reply to one that Reginald had sent to the lawyer

from Hong Kong, which in its own turn had also been a reply. For to

the young lieutenant there had come at the Station a letter from Mr..

Bentham, stating that his uncle--also a Reginald Crafer--was dead,

that he had left the younger Reginald a few thousand pounds (the

principal part of his income having been derived from an annuity and a

government pension) and "Phips House." Then Reginald had written back

for further details, had received the above-quoted answer at the Naval

Club this morning, and--_voilà tout!_

Of course, he knew as much about the mysterious entailment of Phips

House as the lawyer did; it would have been strange had he not done

so. Eleven different Crafers had held possession of it since Nicholas

departed this life in King William III.'s reign: eleven different

Crafers, all of whom had sought high and low for the fortune it was

supposed to contain, or for some clue as to how the fortune of "Fiftie

thousand guineas" was to be obtained; and of those Crafers many had

torn their hair in vexation, and others had stamped their feet

and cursed and sworn--or, perhaps I had better say, grumbled and

growled--at finding nothing. Of such irate descendants the last, the

late lamented Reginald, had, however, not been one. Perhaps because he

thought that if his ten predecessors could find no fortune in the

house, he was not likely to do so; or perhaps because he was himself

very comfortably off with his annuity and his pension from a

Government office, and his few thousands of invested money--which

Lieutenant Crafer now came into--he bothered his head not at all about

the chimera of the house at Strand-on-the-Green. Certainly he cursed

not over it, neither did he swear--unless it was at the damp from the

river!--and, being bald, he had no hair to tear; and he never tapped

panels nor prodded walls nor looked for secret doors in the house,

contenting himself with letting young "Reg" do all this when he came

to stay with him. For the rest, and being a bachelor, he spent much

time at his club; he took a faint interest in the curiosity which the

legend of Phips House excited in the minds of his friends, as well as

of the waterside loafers of Brentford, Kew, Mortlake, and all the

immediate neighbourhood; he would even go so far as to invite people

to stay with him and hunt about the house for themselves, when they

were not enjoying the prospect from the windows of the market-gardens

across the river. But of excitement in the legendary fortune, this

bald-headed and comfortably situated ex-Civil Servant could get up not

one jot; and when a burglar broke into the house, determined on

finding, as he informed the barrister who defended him, "the blooming

fortune if it was to be found," he went to see him at Pentonville

after his trial and told him he sincerely wished he had found it.

Thus, to him, the fortune of Phips House was but an allegory or a

myth, which he regarded but as a grown-up child regards a fairy-tale;

and so, unbelieving in all that pertained to it, he passed away to

Kensal Green and Reginald the Second ruled in his stead.

But he, when he was a child--being of a romantic nature--did believe

in the fortune of Nicholas Crafer; and when he was a man--being a

sailor--had not lost all faith in the romance.

Whether that faith was justified, you who read on shall see.

CHAPTER II.

AN OLD BIT OF HISTORY.

Who is he, especially of the London brood, who knows not

Strand-on-the-Green? Who knows not that it lies below the choice and

savoury town of Brentford and below Kew Bridge also, on the Middlesex

shore; that it is composed of a long, straggling row of houses, many

of them old and most of them quaint, which are of all shapes, sizes,

and uses? One there is in which once dwelt Zoffany, the painter; hard

by is a waterman's cottage, where the succulent winkle or shrimp may

be purchased and eaten--the former with a pin supplied by the vendor;

then comes a row of comfortable houses panelled and wainscotted

within, then more tiny shops (with, interspersed all along the row,

the genial public-house); then more private houses; and so on to Phips

House--old, quaint, gabled, and mullioned, panelled also, and

wainscotted. In it are fireplaces in the corners of the rooms--sure

proofs of the early Charles II. period; it has also carved wooden

doors and carved balustrades and banisters; there are balconies to the

front windows having bulging rails to fit the hoops of women belonging

to long-forgotten days; and all about it is that genuine look of

latter Stuart times which may still be found in very many houses in

this locality.

"What did it appear like when Nicholas first bought it?" mused

Reginald Crafer to himself a few evenings later than the day he

breakfasted at "The George." "Even if it hasn't altered, its

surroundings have." Then he turned his eyes around and went on, gazing

down the river meanwhile. "The 'White Hart' at Mortlake was there, I

think--I have read of Jacobites taking boat from its steps; and so was

the Duke of Devonshire's and old Chiswick beyond, with wicked Barbara

Villiers standing at the window of her house and shrieking for the

return of her lost youth and beauty. But not much else! No main

drainage then, no horrible gasworks, no District Railway bridges! It

must have changed a good deal since Nicholas hid his fabulous fortune,

or the story of it, in the house--if it is fabulous."

He put the key into the door and entered, musing still.

"I wonder what Nicholas did to pass his time? There was no 'Packet

Hotel,' no 'Indian Queen,' no 'Star and Garter' then." These places

are, it should be told, hostelries of more modern date. "There was not

much for him to do to amuse himself," he went on. "He was too late to

know Kinde Kit of Kingston, who lived here; too early for the Georgian

revels at Kew. Yet he might have often seen William of Orange (it was

hard by here they attempted to assassinate him); he might have smoked

and drunk at the 'Three Pidgeons,' at Brentford, and known the

daughter of Shakespeare's brother-actor, Lowin, who kept the place.

Who knows?"

This young man, you see, was well acquainted with the history of the

neighbourhood in which stood the house he had now inherited. It was

not remarkable that he should be so. From his earliest childhood his

fancy had been strongly taken by all the gossip connected with the

property that must some day be his if his uncle remained unmarried,

and never did he by haphazard see the names of Brentford, Kew, or

Strand-on-the-Green printed but he studied every word in connection

with them. Thus, he was neither erudite nor pedantic, but only very

interested in all that concerned the spot, and, therefore, very well

informed about it.

What he did not know was--in common with his forerunners--much about

the mysterious Nicholas Crafer, who had contrived, by arousing the

curiosity of his descendants through the medium of his strange will,

to keep his memory very green. And not only the curiosity of his

descendants, but also of most people brought into the slightest

connection with the spot. The waterside hands, the barge-loaders and

the lookers after private skiffs and gigs, the keepers of local

refreshment-houses, whether "publics" or those chaste bowers which

have upon their fronts the mystic legends, "Tea and hot water 9_d_."

(how can there be tea-drinking without hot water?); even the hands of

the steamers passing up and down--of the _Cardinal Wolsey_ for Hampton

Court (which place it reacheth not without arduous struggles and

terrible delay), and the captains of the _Bridegroom_ and the _Wedding

Ring_ (graceful names well suited to riparian jaunts!)--all knew the

legend of Phips House as well as its new owner. So, too, did the

dwellers on Kew Green, the respectable City men who resided on the Kew

Gardens estate and were on familiar terms with the parson, and the

City clerks who abode in great numbers in modern Gunnersbury and

modern Chiswick. All knew, I say, the legend of Phips House; all had

heard of Nicholas Crafer, who was considered to have been a pirate and

buccaneer; all--watermen, City men, and City clerks--were proud of

their local history of Nicholas and their--in a way--connection with

him.

What was, however, really known of him by the family--reduced now to

Reginald alone--what had filtered through the eleven generations with

regard to him, was no more than this: He had been an officer in the

navy of the Commonwealth, being but a lad at that time, and serving

under Blake during its last two years of existence; then under Charles

II. in the royal navy; and then under James II., in whose first year

of misrule he retired. Many a fight did he engage in in those days, as

was well known to his descendants: he was in the destruction of the

Spanish ships at Santa Cruz in 1657, and at the defeat of Van

Wassenaer by James, Duke of York, in 1665, in the "four days' fight"

in 1666, and he assisted in the capture of the _Golden Horse_ corsair

in 1681, and many other valiant deeds besides.

Yet were none of these martial feats so romantic as one other thing he

did, or, rather two other things. He accompanied Sir William Phips,

then plain Captain Phips, in both his expeditions for the fishing up

of the Hispaniola Plate--the second attempt proving successful. Now,

as not all the world knows, but as his descendants of course knew,

'twas in the _Algier Rose_ that Phips made his first attempt to get

this plate in the reign of that most high and puissant prince, King

Charles II., of ever-gracious memory. 'Twas that great monarch who put

at his disposal the _Algier Rose_, after listening to Phips's tale in

the embrasure of a window at Whitehall--what time he was playing with

the silky ears of a spaniel on his knee and leering at a young country

lady fresh come to Court--a tale narrating how the Spanish plate ship,

or carrack, was sunk off Hispaniola--or, as we now call it, San

Domingo and Hayti; and how he, Phips, felt sure he could fish it up.

But Phips came back without the plate, and the august Charles, being

dead, could help him no more, nor would the saintly James, his

successor, do so.

Phips was therefore now on what he would, perhaps, have called his

"beam-ends," and so were some of his officers, including Nicholas

Crafer; and on them he would doubtless have remained had not his good

fortune thrown in his way at this moment a friendly patron. This was

none other than Christopher Monk, second Duke of Albemarle, a nobleman

who loved much the bottle--which fondness led to his death shortly

afterwards, when Governor of Jamaica--and who also took great interest

in stories of buried treasure, and listened to tales of such things

with eagerness. To him, therefore, Phips opened up the subject of the

Spanish plate. He swore that though he had failed once in finding it

he would never fail again; and he so much impressed his drunken Grace

with his energy and sincerity that, at last, he sailed once more for

the West Indies as captain of a private ship commissioned to hunt for

the plate, and with him Nicholas sailed too as second officer. Much

money had been advanced for the quest; Albemarle taking six

shares, while three were allotted to Phips, one to Nicholas, and

one between the other officers, and the remainder amongst those

adventurer-merchants who had assisted in finding the necessary

capital.

All this is matter of history, which may be grubbed up by the student

with little pains; so, too, is the fact that Phips did come back with

the plate, having gone through some considerable dangers and hardships

to secure it. Then the saintly King, James--who took a tenth as his

royalty for granting the patent--was advised to seize all the plate on

the ground that "one half of what had been in the Spanish carrack was

missing," and that, consequently, Phips had secreted that half

somewhere for his future use. But the King, contrary to what might

have been expected of him, refused to believe such to be the

case--perhaps because he had been a sailor himself once, and a good

one, too!--and, instead, ordered the money to be divided and

apportioned as had been at first arranged, and also, at the request of

the graceless but goodhearted Duke, knighted the captain, making him

thereby Sir William Phips.

So Albemarle got his six shares, Phips got his three, and Nicholas his

one: but as to how much each got considerable doubt has ever existed,

since some historians say the plate realised only £90,000, and some

say £300,000; though it was thought that Phips got £16,000. But

whatever it was it was sufficient to assist the Duke in ruling

royally over his colony (for a year, when the bottle finished him!),

to support Phips until the time came when he was made Governor

of New England, and to enable Nicholas to buy his house at

Strand-on-the-Green.

But than this no more was known, except that Nicholas lived some years

after the making of his will, since he did not die until 1701, when

the smallpox carried him off. And of what he did in those years

neither was anything more known, nor of how he and Phips really got

the treasure, what adventures they went through, or what hardships

they then endured.

Yet, as will now be seen, the time was at last at hand when Reginald

Crafer the second, twelfth in descent from Nicholas, the so-called

pirate and buccaneer, was to find out all that there was to be

discovered about him. He was soon to learn the reason of Nicholas's

strange will and testament.

CHAPTER III.

THE VANISHED MR. WARGRAVE.

Now, in the letter of Mr. Bentham, the lawyer, to the present

Reginald, mention was made of "a scrap of paper once found," of which

the young man knew. And that he did so know of it was most certain, as

all who came after the fourth Crafer in descent from Nicholas had

known, for it was in the time of that fourth Crafer and in the first

year of the reign of George III. that it had been discovered. Only,

when it was discovered it told nothing, since on it were simply

the words, "My friend Mr. Wargrave has the papers that will tell

all.--NICHOLAS CRAFER."

Nothing could very well have been more disheartening than this; and I

fear that the fourth Crafer in descent, whose Christian name was

David, must, when he discovered that paper, have been one of the

family who indulged in hair (or wig) tearings and in strong language.

He was himself a doctor--for the eleven descendants of Nicholas had

among them embraced all the professions and callings fit for

gentlemen--having a fair practice in the neighbourhood of Brentford

and Chiswick, and was consequently a stay-at-home man. And during his

home-keeping life, while having a few alterations made to what was in

those days called the saloon, or withdrawing room, he found the

useless piece of paper. It was in the leaves of a Wagener, always

called by sailors a "Waggoner" (a book of charts, or _routier_, much

used by old navigators), that the scrap was discovered pasted--between

the cover and the title-page. The book itself was in a little wooden

cupboard, not a foot square, that had always been evidently regarded

as a secret receptacle and hiding-place, since over and in front of

the cupboard-doors, which had an antique lock to them, the

wainscotting was capable of removal. Yet, when last the wainscotting

had been put over that cupboard, it was easy enough to perceive that

the person who had so closed it up had intended it should not be

opened again for some time, since the wood of the wainscot had been

glued in some manner to the cupboard-door. Then, in the passage of

time between Nicholas having closed up the cupboard and the epoch of

David Crafer arriving, when the builder's man lighted on it--which was

a period of over fifty-five years--some stamped hangings of floss and

velvet had been placed over the wainscot by another owner; so that at

last the little cupboard with its contents was entirely hidden away.

That Nicholas could have ever intended his scrap of paper--if the

information was really of any use in his own day, or in days near to

his time--to be so lost, it was of course impossible to decide.

Doubtless he never dreamt that the panels would be covered up by the

hangings, and perhaps thought that, therefore, sooner or later, some

curious eye would observe that there was a difference in their size

where they enclosed the cupboard. However, whatever he thought or did

not think, the builder in making his alterations had unearthed the

paper.

Only, as David Crafer remarked, it was of no use to him now it was

found and never would be; which was the truth, for when he in his turn

went the way of those before him he had never so much as really and

positively found out who Mr. Wargrave was.

Yet he had tried hard to do so in the time that was left him. Knowing

his ancestor to have been a sailor, every record bearing on the

sailors of the past fifty years was searched by him or those employed

by him, but there was no Wargrave who had ever been heard of. The

Admiralty officials of those days swore no Wargrave had ever served in

the navy; whoever he was, they said, one thing was certain--he was not

a King's officer. Then David Crafer got the idea that the man was,

after all, a lawyer whom Nicholas confided in; but again he found

himself at bay. The records of dead-and-gone lawyers, even when they

had been famous, were scanty enough in the early days of last century;

when they had not been famous--above all, when they were only

attorneys--those records scarcely existed at all. So, at last, David

Crafer gave up the law in despair. If there had ever been a Wargrave

in that profession, he, at least, could find out nothing about him.

Next, he tried the City, which was not a very large place in his own

day, and had been smaller in the days of Nicholas. Yet it was

difficult to glean any information of the City even in those

times--especially since the information desired was nearer sixty than

fifty years old. It is true there was, as far back as the period of

Nicholas Crafer and the mysterious Wargrave, a London Directory (such

useful volume having been first published in 1677), yet in the copies

which he could obtain a sight of--which was done with difficulty,

since reference books were not preserved with much care in those

times, and those which he did see were neither consecutive nor in a

perfect condition--he found no mention of the name of Wargrave.

So time went on, David Crafer grew old and feeble, and had almost

entirely desisted from the search for the name of Wargrave--the man

himself must, of course, have been dead for some decades--and had long

since come to the conclusion that he would never find out anything

about him. Then, all at once, when visiting a friend in the City, and

while turning over a volume in that friend's parlour, he lighted on

the name and possibly the person. The book was entitled "A Compleat

Guide to all Persons who have any Trade of Concern within the City of

London and parts adjacent;" and peering into it in a half-interested,

half-hopeless, and half-hearted manner, old David saw the name of

"Samuel Wargrave, silversmith and dealer, Cornhill." Moreover, he saw

that the book containing the name was published in 1701, the year when

Nicholas died.

Therefore he thought he had found his man, or, at least, had found the

chance of gleaning some information about him. But, alas! the year

1701 was a long way off the year 1760, when the paper was discovered

in the little cupboard, and still longer off the year 1768, at which

period David had now arrived. Moreover, David was, as has been said,

grown old and feeble; "he did not know," he told himself that night as

the coach took him back to Strand-on-the-Green, "if he cared overmuch

now to go a-hunting for a dead man, or even for the knowledge that

dead man might have possessed of Nicholas Crafer's treasure."

Yet, old as he was, being now turned seventy, he took the trouble to

make some inquiries. He had a son, an officer, away serving in the

American colonies, himself no longer a very young man; if he could

find something more to leave him than the money for which he had sold

his practice and his little savings and the old house to live in, why

it would be well to do so. So, once more, armed with the knowledge

that Mr. Wargrave had been a silversmith in Cornhill, he began further

inquiries--which resulted in nothing! At least in nothing very

tangible, though they proved that the man who was in the "Compleat

Guide" had once lived where he was stated to have done. The parish

books to which David obtained access showed this; and they showed also

that he must have been the tenant of the whole house--even though he

let off part of it, as was likely enough--since he was rented at £133

per annum, a good sum in those days even for a City house; but they

told nothing further. No one could be unearthed who remembered

Wargrave the silversmith, no one who had ever heard of him. Nor did

his business appear to have survived him, since, in the half-year

following his last payment of rates and taxes, the next occupant of

the house was a mercer, who in his turn was followed by a coffee-house

keeper, who, in David's own day--as he saw with his own eyes--was

succeeded by a furniture dealer.

And then, as the old man reflected, this Mr. Wargrave might not be,

probably was not, the man who was Nicholas's friend.

At this period David Crafer died; and ere his son, the officer in the

American colonies, could be apprised of his death he too was dead,

being shot through the heart in a skirmish with some Indians near

Boston. Confirmation being received of his death, the property passed

to another Crafer belonging to the elder branch, which was still

existent in Hampshire; and by the time he in his turn had passed away

the finding of the scrap of paper in the Wagener, and the hunt for Mr.

Wargrave, were almost forgotten, if not entirely so. In fact, as

generation continued to succeed generation, not only did these

incidents become forgotten but the whole thing became almost a legend

or a fairy-tale. One inheritor even went so far as to scoff at the

will of Nicholas, saying that he was a romantic old sea-dog who had

taken this manner of keeping his memory before his descendants; while,

as you have seen, the late Reginald regarded the whole story with a

pleasing indifference. But the present Reginald, who was himself of a

romantic tendency, could by no means regard the story in anything but

the light of truth, and, if he ever indulged in any hopes at all, they

were more that the mystery might be cleared up in his time than that

the fortune of £50,000 should come to him.

And it is because in his time the mystery was cleared up, that the

whole story of what Nicholas Crafer did leave behind him "equivalint

unto the summe of fiftie thousand guineas" can now be told.

CHAPTER IV.

CAZALET'S BANK.

Now this is the manner in which the mystery was at last cleared up in

the time of Reginald Crafer, Lieutenant, R.N.

There was, and still is, in the neighbourhood that lies between

Chancery Lane and Cheapside, an ancient banking establishment that is

as old as the Bank of England itself--if not some years older--and

that has, from its creation, been known as "Cazalet's." Yet there has

been no Cazalet in the firm for nigh upon a hundred years, but,

instead, the partners--of whom there are now two--boast the ancient

patronymic of Jones. These Joneses are descendants, on the female

side, from the last Cazalet, and in this way have become possessed

of the old business; and it was when their father--for they are

brothers--died, at almost the same time that Reginald's uncle passed

out of existence, that a change took place, which led in a roundabout

way to the writing of this narrative of "The Hispaniola Plate."

Old Mr. Jones had, I say, been gathered to all the other Joneses who

had gone before him, and the two young Messrs. Jones--one aged

forty-five and the other thirty-nine--decided that his decease marked

a period in the existence of Cazalet's when a change ought to be made.

That change was to take a shape, however, in the first instance, which

caused a vast number of the people who banked with them, as well as

all their senior clerks--many of them nearly as old as the late Jones

himself--to shake their heads and to wonder why that late Jones did

not burst forth corporeally from his grave, or, at the very least,

appear in the spirit, to forbid the desecration that was about to take

place. For the old house was to be pulled down--ruthlessly sacrificed

to the spirit of the times, and a bran-new one was to be built up in

its place!

"Well," said the ancient chief cashier--who had been there boy and man

since 1843, and had grown old, and also tobacco-and-spirit-stained,

during the evenings of a life spent in the service of Cazalet's--when

he received the first intimation of this terrible news, "if that's

going to happen it's time I was off. Lor' bless me! a new house! Well,

then, they'll require some new clerks. They don't want a wreck like me

in such a fine new modern building as they're going to shove up."

"Why, Mr. Creech," said a much younger _employé_ of Cazalet's, a youth

who came in airily every morning from Brixton, and was supposed to be

the best lawn-tennis player in that suburb, "that's just why you ought

to remain; you'll give the new show a fine old crusted air of

respectability; you're a relic, you are, of the good old days. They'll

never be able to do without you."

But Mr. Creech only grunted, and, it being one o'clock in the day when

this conversation took place, he lifted up the lid of his desk, took

some sandwiches out of a paper packet, and, applying his lips to a

small flask, diffused a genial aroma of sherry-and-water around him.

Yet, as he thus partook of his lunch, he wagged his head in a

melancholy manner and thought how comfortable he had been for the best

part of his life in the old, dingy, dirty-windowed house; it having

been a standing rule of Cazalet's that the windows were never to be

cleaned, and rumour had it that they had not been touched since the

house was built.

That the firm "would never be able to do without him," as his

cock-a-hoop junior had remarked, seemed, indeed, to be the case, and

received exemplification there and then. For at that moment a bell

rang in the inner sanctum where the brothers sat, and a moment

afterwards the office-boy who had answered it told Mr. Creech that the

"pardners wanted to see 'im;" whereon he gulped down a last drop of

the sherry-and-water, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and

went in to them, wondering "what was up now?"

"Sit down, Creech, sit down," said the "pardners" together, "we want

to have a talk with you about the new house." Here Creech grunted. "Or

rather," the elder one went on, "the old house;" whereon the cashier

smiled, as much as to say that that was a far more congenial subject

to him. Then Alfred, the elder brother, continued:

"You know more about this house, Creech, than anybody else." Creech

gave a grunt again here, which tailed off into a sigh. "Why, bless

my soul! you've been here five years longer than I've been in

existence--there's no one else knows as much about us as you do."

"I came here a boy of sixteen," said Creech, looking at the clock on

the wall as though it was a kind of calendar of his career, "and I'm

sixty-five now. That makes forty-nine years. Come Easter, I've been

here fifty years. It's a long while!"

"It is a long while," said the younger partner, Henry. "But you're all

right, you know, Creech. Cazalet's look after those who have served

them long and well. When you feel like retirement and a pension, you

say so. Only, I don't know how we shall get on without you. However,

the retirement is a long way off yet, I hope. Let us talk about the

present."

"What we want to know is this," said Alfred, "and you're the person to

tell us. What is there stored away down in the vaults below the strong

room? We haven't been down there for years; not since we were boys and

our father used to let us go down sometimes. There seemed to be only

an awful lot of mouldering rubbish, and it'll all have to be gone over

and either destroyed or fetched up before the builders go to work on

the foundations."

"So there is a lot of rubbish," replied Creech, "though I haven't been

down there myself for over twenty years. The last time I was down was

when the Prince o' Wales went to return thanks at St. Paul's. I

remember it because I found a bottle of port wine on a ledge, and we

drank his health as he went by. I told your father about it

afterwards, and he said it must have been some of the Waterloo port

his father had had given him."

"What else is there?"

"A lot of rubbish," repeated Creech. "There's several old boxes, most

of them burst open, with leases, I should say, belonging to dead and

gone customers of the bank, and a heap of broken old furniture that

belonged upstairs when the family lived over the bank. I found a fine

copper warming-pan, that Mr. Jones made me a present of; and I think

there's an old spinet down there, and broken chairs and tables, and

office stuff, and a basket full of broken glass and crockery, and that

sort of thing."

"Humph!" said the elder brother. "Leases, eh? We ought to look into

those. If they're ours we ought to preserve them, and if they belonged

to customers who have left descendants, they should be returned. They

may still be of the greatest value. Who can tell?"

"_My_ wife," said the younger, "has been filling the new house at

Egerton Gardens full of the most awful-looking gimcracks I ever saw.

She'll want that spinet directly she hears of it, and if she could

only find another warming-pan she'd hang it up in the bedroom passages

as an ornament."

"_My_ wife," said Creech, "warms the beds with ours in the winter.

It's a very good one, but I'll send it back if Mrs. Jones wants to

decorate her landing."

"No," said Jones Junior, "we'll say nothing about it. There's far too

much rubbish in the house already. Suppose," to his brother, "we go

down into the vaults and have a look round."

This was agreed to, so down they went, after Creech had armed himself

with a large paraffin candle and had rummaged out a bag full of keys

of all sizes and shapes, while the elder Jones carried with him the

more modern and bright keys that opened the safes and strong room.

This latter they were, of course, in the habit of visiting every day,

but the trap door leading to the vaults below--which was in the floor

of the strong room--testified to the truth of Creech's assertion that

it possibly had not been opened for twenty years. First of all, when

the key was found, the lock was so rusty that it could not be turned

until some oil had been brought, and then the door had stuck so that

the two brothers--for Creech was no good at this work--could hardly

pull it up. However, at last they got it open, and then they descended

the stone steps one by one.

The place--as seen by the light of the candle--was, as the old cashier

had described it, an _olla-podrida_ of all kinds of lumber. The hamper

of broken glass and crockery was there, so was the spinet, looking

very antique and somewhat mouldy--a thing not to be wondered at,

seeing that the Jones family had not lived over the bank during the

present century. The broken chairs, stools, and tables were all piled

in a corner--in another stood the boxes, some of them burst open, of

which Creech had spoken. And around and about the vaults there

pervaded the damp atmosphere which such places always have. The

cashier had brought a second candle in his pocket, which he now lit,

and by this additional light they saw all that there was to be seen.

"A lease of a farm in Yorkshire," said Alfred, taking up the first one

that lay loose on the top of the first box, whose rusted padlock came

off it, nails and all, as they touched the lid, "called Shrievalls,

from the Earl of Despare to Antony Jones. Lor' bless me! Why,

Shrievalls has been in our family for any amount of time, and I never

heard of the Earl. I suppose we bought it afterwards. That's no use to

anyone. What's this? A covenant of the Earl of Despare to pay an

annuity to Ambrose Hawkins for the remainder of his life, made in the

year 1743; that covenant has expired! That's no use to any one,

either. A bundle of acceptances by Sir Marmaduke Flitch to Peter

Jones--our great-grandfather. Flitch! Flitch! No knowledge of him

either. An authority from Annabella Proctor to pay to her brother, so

long as he holds his peace--humph!--ha!--well, that's an old family

scandal--we needn't read that just now. Transfer of a lease from Mr.

Stringer, son of Sir Thomas Stringer, a judge of the King's Bench, to

Mr. Samuel Wargrave, late silversmith and jeweller, of Cornhill, now

of Enfield, dated 1688. I suppose one or the other of them was a

customer of the bank."

"Then it was Wargrave!" exclaimed Creech. "I've seen that name in some

of our old books. At least, I think I have. Let me see--Wargrave.

Where _have_ I seen it? I know it somehow."

"It can't matter," said the younger Jones. "There has been no Wargrave

on our books for a long while."

"A bundle of letters," went on the elder, taking them up, "from the

Lady Henrietta Belville to Bartholomew Skelton, Esquire, at the

University of Leyden, with one beginning, 'My dear and only

love,--Since my 'usband is away to York'--Oh, dear! dear! we needn't

read that now."

"I should think not," said the younger brother. "The Skelton family

still banks with us. We had better send the letter back intact.

Bankers should keep secrets as well as lawyers."

"Wargrave," mumbled Creech to himself, as he leaned against an antique

office-stool minus a leg. "Wargrave! Where have I heard the name?"

"An account book with no name in it but a date. And written therein,

'On behalf of the Earl of Mar, his expedition.' Humph! ha! well, we had

a good many Jacobites among our old customers. What's this? A glove

with a lot of tarnished silver fringe about it, a woman's--these are

romantic finds!--a bunch of withered flowers, almost dust, and a

little box----"

"That's it," exclaimed Creech, "a box with the name of Wargrave on it.

That's it!"

"On the contrary, Creech, there is nothing on it; but, inside, a paper

with written on that, and badly spelt, too--'His hair. Cut from his

head by a true friend after his death at the Battle of Clifton Moor.'"

"No, no," said Creech, "I don't mean that box. I mean there is a box

somewhere in this vault--a small one, with the name of Wargrave on

it."

"There are a good many boxes with names on them," said one of the

brothers, glancing round; "and I doubt if any speak more pathetically

of the past than this one with its wisp of withered hair and its

label."

But Creech was hunting about in the rubbish by now, and at last,

exclaiming, "That's the one I mean," seized on a small iron box a foot

square and brought it to where the partners and candles were.

"That," he said, as he plumped it down on the spinet, which emitted a

rusty groan from its long-disused keys as he did so, "is the box I

mean. I remember seeing it years and years ago. Look at what's written

on it."

In faded ink, brownish red now instead of black, on paper a dirty

slate colour instead of white, were the words:--

This box is to be given to any descendant or representative of

Lieutenant Nicholas Crafer who is alive at my death. To be given at

once after, but not before.--SAMUEL WARGRAVE.

_Nota Bene_.--I do believe it is very important.

_January_, 1709.

"And," exclaimed the younger brother, "being so very important it has

lain here for over 180 years. We _have_ been assiduous for our

customers."

"But why," said the elder brother, "when you saw it years ago, Creech,

was nothing done? Why did not you, or my father, find out some

Wargrave or some Crafer? There must be some left."

"Your father said he would make some inquiries; but I don't know

whether he ever did or not. At any rate, it went clean out of my head.

I was just off on my holidays, I remember, when I happened to see it;

and, to tell you the truth, I never thought any more about it from

that day to this. And I shouldn't have done so now if it hadn't been

for that transfer you read out a minute ago."

* * * * * *

A fortnight later the box was in Reginald Crafer's possession, with an

apology from Messrs. Cazalet and Co. for the long period in which it

had lain unattended to in their hands. They had discovered him by a

reference to the suburban directory, after a search through the London

and also several county directories, and Mr. Bentham's name had been

quite enough to assure Messrs. Cazalet and Co. that he was the

rightful person to whom to entrust the box.

The lock--a most excellent one, considering when it was made--had to

be burst open, for no key could be found to fit it, and then Reginald

saw what were its contents. First, there was a piece of paper on which

was written:--

I do feel so sure that Mr. Wargrave will carry out my instructions

after my death that I leave this pretious legacy to him in all good

faith, and to you my descendant to whom it may after come, with all my

love and good wishes; and so I say, May what you find herein prosper

you. N. C.

Then, in a neat roll, tied up with black ribbon, was a vast number of

sheets of paper covered with writing, some of it being very neat, some

of it very ungainly, with many words scored out and others inserted,

and also many misspelt, and some not spelt twice alike.

And Reginald Crafer, after an early meal, sat himself down to a

perusal of those closely written sheets which had been at last

unearthed after lying in the vaults of Cazalet's bank so long.

This is what they told him.

_The History of

NICHOLAS CRAFER, Lieutenant,

and the Search for

THE HISPANIOLA PLATE,

with all that occurred during that search

and followed after it.

As told by him_.

CHAPTER V.

CAPTAIN WILLIAM PHIPS.

There will be but little need that I ask pardon of him or her who

receives this paper from Mr. Wargrave, since if he who does so shall

have courage, or she who receives it have an honest friend to depend

upon, they will have no reason to reproach me for what I have done.

The finding of it will tell him or her how they shall become possessed

of a fortune; and those who have gone before them and after me can

never know how they have missed it. That it is not well for any Crafer

to find this paper near unto my time is the reason why, with great

care and pains, I have so bestowed it in my friend's hand, and, better

is it that I shall have laid in grave a hundred years or more before

it is discovered, than that any coming close to me should light upon

it.

Now, you who so receive my writing shall understand the reason whereof

I say this. Because it partly relateth to a large amount of plate, of

jewels, of gold and coins, all of which did indeed belong to the

Spanish Carrack which my commander, Phips, digged or rather fished up,

from the bottom of the sea where it had lain forty-four years, or, as

some did aver, fifty, and because it was the rightful property of him,

of the Duke of Albemarle who had a share therein, of King James who

had a tenth, and of many others. For some of this money and valuables

was all stolen by a thief who was ever a rogue in grain, and what is

true enough is, that there was a many suspicions when the finders came

back to London that one half of this treasure was missing. As indeed

some was, tho' not stolen by him whom the accusers pointed at. For

Phips, who was an honest-born New England boy--one of twenty-six

children--who had been bred a shepherd and had then become a sailor,

was indeed no thief, but ever an honest man, as James declared, who

was himself none too honest. Yet, as I say, when the ship with the

treasure came back to England, there was a cry that one half was

missing, that Phips had left me and others behind to hide away that

half, and that, indeed, we were all thieves--tho' we were none, or

only one of us, and that was neither Phips nor I.

Now, if so be that the house which I called after my dear and honoured

friend, and superior in rank tho' not in birth--for the Crafers have

ever been gentlemen of repute and of good descent from an ancient

family in Hampshire--be not burned down or falleth not down from age,

and our line dieth not out, and the paper telling where these writings

are be not doomed to be found by a stranger, then must a Crafer be the

one to read them. And he will find strange matter in it who doth so

read. For in the long winter evenings which are before me--since I

have begun to write this narrative in the month of November, 1700, and

trust to finish it with the incoming of the New Century--I do propose

to tell you who may open the packet all that befel our voyages to find

the contents of the Hispaniola Plate Ship, which was sunken off "The

Boylers," a reef of shoals a few leagues off of the island of Aiitti,

as the natives call it; but known generally by its Spanish name of San

Domingo.

And being but a poor penman I mean to divide my story into heads,

thusly.

First, I mean to tell you of my acquaintance with Phips at the time he

approached The King, I mean Charles; then of how he sailed in the

_Algier Rose_ for Hispaniola, and of two mutinies. Then, how after

four years, we again sailed in the Duke's ship, or _Furie_, and what

happened to us in the fishing up of the plate. But more than all this

is to tell you of shameful villainies and thievings that took place,

and of how the chief villain was frustrated so that not he but another

was to be benefited. And who, think you, my descendant whom I know

not, is that other? You may think Phips, you might imagine myself or

the Duke, you might suppose some of the other adventurers. Yet 'tis

not so. 'Tis no less an one than _you--you, yourself_. That is if you

have a manly heart, or, being a woman, a man to help you. For as I

have writ--and if I repeat myself you must forgive me, for we sailors

who fought battles almost weekly had but little enough time to study

the art of writing; and you will find your reward by reading this--it

is you who are to benefit. You are to have the fortune which the thief

was possessed of, tho' not what he stole.

Therefore, having made this introduction, I proceed to tell my tale.

And as I have, although a sailor, been ever a God-fearing man, I pray

that it shall be a Crafer who receives this from where I have disposed

of it. For it was I who gained it all from him, and tho' I shall never

see you who come after me, you may well suppose that I would sooner,

far sooner, that the fortune came to one of my own flesh and blood

than to one no way allied to me.

So I begin.

'Twas in the year of our Lord 1682, and during the visit of Prince

George,[1] son of the Elector of Hanover, that I made the friendship of

Phips, then Captain of a private ship hailing from Boston. I was

ashore from the royal yacht that had brought the Prince over, and,

insomuch as I now sought another ship, had gone into lodgings in

Spring Gardens, both because of the freshness of the air over that of

the city and its nearness to the Admiralty office. And it was at this

latter, where there had creeped up again a good habit of the Admirals

of meeting their officers frequently, that I encountered William

Phips. A brave, topping gentleman he was, too,--for all he was a

Puritan, tho', I think, ever in his mind a sailor first--then

thirty-two years of age, fine and big and well dressed. Now, as a

colonist and but a private sailor man, Phips was inferior to all of us

who sailed for the King, yet he won soon upon us. He was brought in by

Matthew Aylmer, then holding the rank of commander, though destined

for much higher things, as I have lived to see; and soon we were told

what his business was. This was no less than to get the King to give

him a ship in which he had a mind to go treasure-hunting. Yet this was

not a vision neither, for says he to us,

"Gentlemen, I know what I speak of and 'tis not foolishness. In

Hispaniola--where I have been many a time--there is a place called

Porto de la Plata. Surely some of you King's officers have heard tell

of it!"

Two or three amongst us nodded of our heads with assent at this, and

he continued:--

"Well gentlemen, do you know why 'tis so termed? No? Then will I tell

you. Forty-four, or as some say fifty years agone, there came ashore

at that spot--which then had no name at all--a shipwrecked crew in an

open boat, in which there was no room for them to lie down, so stuffed

full was it of plate."

Here one or two of us laughed, and some seemed much aroused, while

Phips continued:--

"They were saved from the great Spanish plate ship which had sunk some

leagues out when striking on a reef, and what they brought with them

was all that they could save. This was well known all over the island

shortly afterwards, and is spoken of now, even unto this day."

He had told this tale before to Aylmer, as afterwards I learned from

him, and a few moments later he told it to the King, being taken over

to him by his friend and introduced. Now, it is not for me to write

down the grievous faults and failings of Charles--he is gone before

his Judge!--but I will say this, that, with all his errors, he had a

mind beyond the common. Therefore he harkened unto Phips, and later on

he called his brother James, whose faults were greater than his, but a

good sailor, and asked him what he thought on't?

James was at once all for it and hot upon the idea, for it seemed that

it was not the first time he had heard of the sunken plate ship, and

he was taken with Phips--as, indeed, were all who met with him. So, to

make what would be a tedious story short, Phips received a commission

from the King to go out in command of the _Algier Rose_, with orders

to find the wreck and bring all away in her if he could. And it fell

out to my great good fortune that I went too. To my good fortune as it

came later, tho' not then, for it was not on this journey that we

found the treasure, as you shall soon know.

Yet we hoped to find it, and so I was glad to go. It was in the "Dog"

tavern at Westminster, where many naval men did, and still do, resort,

that I got my appointment to the _Algier Rose_, Phips, who had taken a

fancy to me, swearing that he would not sail without me. So there I

made interest with several from the Admiralty, who would come to the

"Dog" for half a pint of mulled sack, or a dram of brandy, and at last

received my commission as first lieutenant to the frigate. A better

ship never swam than she, carrying eighteen guns and ninety-five men,

and when we took her out early in '83 I can tell you that the brave

hearts on board of her were joyful.

In 1683 it was when we dropped down on the tide, with a lusty cheer or

two from the King's ships lying in the river off Bugsby's Hole--for

they knew our intent--and another from the old man-of-war, the

_Jerzy_, in which I had served as a young lieutenant; and so away out

to sea with light canvas all in aloft, and just a single reef in our

tops'ls, and off we went to find the great Hispaniola wreck.

And so I put down my pen awhile.

CHAPTER VI.

THE BEGINNING OF A MUTINY.

Now it happened that at the "Dog" tavern one day there came in,

when we were sitting there, an astrologer, or geomancer, as 'tis

called--namely, a caster of figures--who marking out Phips (perhaps

because of his uncommon and striking appearance) seized upon him to

tell his fortune, which he, having ever a mind turned towards fun, was

well disposed enough to.

So the cheat, as I thought him to be--though found afterwards he spake

true--catching holt upon Phips's hand, looked long and fixedly at it,

after which he said that much money should be found by him.

"In very truth," called out Phips, while all around did laugh, "'tis

that I go to seek, friend; nor, since every drawer in this tavern and

ragamuffin 'twixt here and Charing Cross knows as much, art thou so

wondrous a necromancer? Go to! your divinations are not worth a

piece."

"Yet, stay," said the caster, speaking up boldly to him--"stay. What

you go to seek you shall not find."

"Ha!" exclaimed Phips, looking at him. "Not find it?"

"Nay, not yet. At present you are thirty-two years of age; it wants

five ere you shall get that you seek. Then shall you obtain your

desires."

"Tis well," exclaimed Phips, "and therefore must I stay the five

years where I go, for find it I will. Yet, harkee, friend, put not

such reports about in this neighbourhood, or I will slit thy nose for

thee. I am a captain of a King's ship now"--as indeed he was, for his

commission was made out--"and a good ship too. I want not to lose it

through the chatter of any knave."

"Moreover," went on the geomancer, taking no more heed of what he said

than tho' he had never spoken--"moreover, this is not all." And as he

spake he pricked with a pin a number of little dots on the table,

where the drink stood. "This is not all. You shall do more."

"Ay," exclaimed Phips, "I shall! Maybe I shall have thee whipped. Yet

continue."

"You shall rule over a large country, though never a King, and you

shall die"----

"Stop there," called out Phips, "and say no more. What thou hast

promised is enough. As for my death, when it comes, it comes; that

also is enough. Now go." And as he spake he picked out from a handful

of elephant and other guineas, as well as some silver-pieces, a crown,

and tossed it to the fellow, who, pouching it, went off.

Yet, afterwards, when we were well on the road to Hispaniola, Phips

would talk with me on this astrologer, and would discuss much his

promises. "For," said he, "there have been many such who have told

truths. My mother had a paper written down by one which worked out so

truly year by year, that at last she flung it in the fire, saying she

would no more of it. And a mighty marvellous thing it was! Year by

year she bore my father a child for twenty-six years, and the

astrologer's paper had so stated, as well as what the sex of the child

should be, yearly. And also did it state that I--her ninth--should

some day command a King's ship, which led to my always aspiring to do

so; and as I now do the _Algier Rose_"--and he stamped on the

poop-house where we stood, as though to confirm his words.

By this time it had arrived that we had passed thro' the Gulph Stream

and were well on our way for Hispaniola, so that 'twas very hot.

Sharks passed near us often, but gave us good heart, since never did

they follow us. Portugee Admirals sailed by on the water, their

pretty forms dotting the tranquil waves--'tis ever tranquil in these

regions--like flowers, and the voyage was a good one. Of our crew also

there was nought to complain, the ninety-five men who composed it

being all sailors who well knew, their work. 'Twould have been strange

had they not known it! Many of them had been fighting the French and

the Dutch for the length of their lifetimes; but 'specially had they

fought the French, which seems to be what an Englishman is ordained,

for; and they had lived all those lifetimes on the sea. Yet, as you

shall learn ere long, they were soon to give us much trouble, and,

later, to give us more.

Now, as I have writ, and as, indeed, the Geomancer rightly forecast,

it was not to be that the treasure should be found by those who sailed

in the _Algier Rose_. Therefore should I not have written down here

this our first cruise in search of that treasure, had it not been that

what happened on that voyage has much to do with what happened on the

second one, when we did indeed find all. To do, that is to say, with

the stealing of a great portion of the treasure by a thief, and how it

came about that he could so steal it. But I wander from what should be

a plain record, and will now proceed.

When once we were safe anchored in Balsamo Bay, which is near unto St.

Jago, and not far from the reef called by us the "Boylers," but by the

Spaniards and Portygees the "Bajo"--wanderers on the seas who have

late been there tell me it is now called the Bajo de la Plata,--we set

to work at once; but our efforts met with no success. Of divers we had

procured two, one a Portygee mulatto, the other an African negro--the

largest and most hideous brute in the form of man that I had ever set

my eyes upon. Day by day we sent them down, and day by day they

returned, swearing that they could find nothing of the Plate ship--no,

not so much as a spar or a block. At first we thought they lied, as,

indeed, we ever did, until at last the wreck was found, and then we

knew they had spoken truth; for, having floated off, as we once

thought, she was three cables--but you shall see.

Thus we worked, fishing ever and catching nothing, for two years, in

which time we endured many hardships. To begin with, the Spaniards

harassed us much, in spite of our not having been at war with them

since '60, and endeavoured to drive us away from the neighbourhood of

the Reef. But them we defied, and, on their sending out at last a

bomb-ketch to attack us, we first of all spoke it fair, and, on that

being no good, blew it out of the water; whereon we heard no more of

them, perhaps because just now they were busy with the French, who had

for the last six or seven years gotten holt of the part called Aiitti,

and wanted the rest.

But now trouble bred amongst us, as, alas! it will do in any number or

body of men who, after long seeking for a thing and finding it not,

grow moody and heartsore.

For the men began to mutter between themselves and to say that we

should never find the sunken ship, and that, since we had a fine

frigate of our own, well armed and manned, why not put it to some

purpose, and go pirating and buccaneering in the Southern Seas? The

first to hear of this was the carpenter, a straightforward honest man

of good grit; the last, of course, was the captain. But being myself

forewarned by this man, whose name was Hanway, I soon went and spake

to the captain, telling him what was going forward and below; and

marvellous calm he was when he did hear it.

Being evening, he was sitting in his cabin under the poop, and, for

coolness, had divested himself of his coat and waistcoat, and was

refreshing of himself with a drink of rum sangaree. Then, when he had

passed me over a glass and I had told my tale of what the carpenter

had repeated to me, says he, mighty easy:--

"They wish me to go a-pirating in the Southern Seas, do they? And how

do they mean to sound me, Crafer?"

"They are going to put it to you first," says I; "then, if you deny

them, they mean to seize the ship."

"So, so," replied he, "that is their intention! Well, we will see.

What are they at now?"

"Standing about the forepart and in the waist," said I, "talking to

each other and doubtless concocting their precious schemes. What is

best to be done?"

"Action," says he, "action, Crafer;" and he made for the cabin door

that opened on to the quarterdeck.

But here I exclaimed, "What will you do? You have neither coat nor

waistcoat, pistol nor hanger; will you go forth and beard mutineers in

such a garb as this?"

"Ay! will I," he says, looking for all the world like a great

lion--"Ay! will I. And you shall see. In half an hour there will be no

mutineers in the _Algier Rose_."

And then, as I regarded his face--on which there was a dreadful

look--and observed his great muscular form, I thought what a grand man

he was and of what a good breed these New Englanders were. And a few

minutes later I had reason for my opinion.

Now Phips had ever treated his men like brothers, never setting them

to work he would not put his own hand to, never cursing or swearing at

them as so many of the dandy captains and soldier captains--who, good

Lord! in those days were sent to command ships at sea--used to do; but

ever kind and gentle to them, besides helping them with a turn at

their labour. Therefore, as you may think, I was rightly astonished

when, on our going on deck, his manner was all changed, so that the

William Phips I knew was no longer to be perceived.

"Ho! there, you men," says he, in a voice that neither I nor they had

ever heard before; "ho, there, you skulking dogs, what are you doing

forward? Come here, all on you, to the quarterdeck. Come here, I

say." And with that he stood in his shirtsleeves, looking for them to

come forward. Very startled, they did so; coming slow, however, so

that Phips hurried them by bawling, "Faster, faster, damn you, or the

bos'un shall hase you." Which words from him made them all to look out

of the tail of their eyes, but yet to come faster. So that, ere long,

he had got half a dozen of 'em ranged up in front of him and a dozen

more behind, looking on, moody and dark, as though afraid that

whatever project they had formed was nipt in the bud.

"Now," says he with another oath--which never did I expect to hear

from him, a New England Puritan and ever a God-fearing man--"now,

who's captain of this King's ship, the _Algier Rose_, eh? Speak out."

"You are," they muttered, surlily enough.

"Louder," says he, "louder. You hain't lost your voices, have you? You

can make the devil's own noise when you're singing and bellowing your

profane ballads in the fo'castle. Speak up!" with still another oath.

"Who's captain of this ship, I say?"

"You are," they answered louder, yet looking black enough.

"Very well," says he. "Now listen to me, you lubbers, and listen

well."

CHAPTER VII.

THE ENDING OF IT.

"Now," he went on, "you're talking about mutiny, I hear, and pirating

in the Southern Seas. Well, who's going to begin the mutiny, eh? Which

of you? Let him come forward so that I can catch holt of him, and

string him up to the fore-top-sail yard with my own hand. Come, which

of you is it, to commence with?"

And again he glared terrible fierce at them.

Then says one of them--poor fool!--"We shall never find no plate here;

what's the good, captain, of our stopping here?"

In a moment that man was upon his back with the blood pouring from his

face, the captain having felled him like a butcher fells an ox, and

"Fling him overboard to the sharks," says he. "Quick, or some more of

you go, too. I'll have no mutineers here and no talk of the Southern

Seas. Over with him, I say!"

But not one of them all moved.

"What," he roared, "it is a mutiny, then! Therefore, let's see the

means to quell it. Crafer, call up all the officers. And now, you

hounds, you who don't want to go to the Southern Seas, stand on the

larboard side. Jump, skip, damn you! All who are on the starboard side

when I have counted ten shall be treated as mutineers. Now."

Some did jump and skip in verity, hopping over to the larboard as

quick as ever they could; for his wrath was awful to see; while for

those who moved slower--though they, too, meant to go--the punishment

was terrible. He sprung amongst them like a lion, as I have said; he

struck and beat them with his fists, bruising and blackening of their

faces; he kicked them like dogs, until every man who had come up to

the quarter deck was over on to the larboard side--some of them

bellowing with pain, some trying to staunch their bleeding wounds,

some leaning over the bow muttering curses in their agony.

Meanwhile the officers had all come up.

"Over with them to the sharks," he cried. "Over! Over! Send other men

forward to help bind them and fling them forth. And this brute first,"

said he, pointing to the man he had first knocked down.

"Mercy! Mercy!" they screamed now, while the other men forward, who

were not disaffected, or, at least, had not shown their disaffection,

came hurrying aft at the double whistles of the bo'sun and the

bo'sun's mate. "Mercy! Mercy! Kill us, but give us not to the sharks.

Mercy!"

I whispered to him, "Surely you will not do this thing, sir?" and was

eased by a glance from him and a word to the effect that he meant not

to do so, yet to scare them, especially the first one, or leader, so

that they should have had their bellies full of mutiny; and,

meanwhile, the poor piteous wretches were howling and weeping, some

calling on their God and some on their mothers, while all the while

their comrades bound them tight.

"Now," says he, and at his words there went up a shriek more dreadful

than before, "Now, fling over some jerked pork whereby the sharks may

be attracted. 'Twill be a fitting prelude to a better meal."

Thereby they roared and roared again until, in very truth, I wonder

the Spanish did not hear them on land--and "Over with the lines ready

to lower those dogs," says he, "and, meantime, I will go and wash

their filthy blood off my hands;" and away he went into his cabin.

Then, we who remained on deck saw to the pork being thrown over, what

time I found opportunity of telling my officers that he might not yet

carry out his dread sentence--and, presently, we saw the most horrid

sight that any sailor is ever doomed to see. We perceived in the dim

grey of the coming night that terrible heave of the water that the

shark maketh, we saw the ripple caused by many fins, we even saw plain

enough the evil, squinting, and upturned eyes looking for more prey.

They had come for their suppers and wanted it--they wanted their

victims; and the victims, gasping and sweating with fear, saw them as

well as we did and knew their wants.

One fell down on deck and died with very fright all in his cords as he

was bound, the others shuddered and shrieked again as Phips's voice

was heard from the poop, and then he came forth once more.

"Are the sharks here?" he roared, "are they come?"

And as he spoke his eye lighted on him who had fallen dead, and he

turned him over with his foot to see if he were truly so.

"A pretty mutineer," then says he, "a pretty mutineer! Well, he is

dead, so over with him--he assoils his Majesty's deck; over with him."

In a minute that dead body was cast over the bows and went splashing

into the sea. Then we saw the waves all tumbled and tossed as though a

seaquake had taken place, or a whale had disturbed them in its

passage; we saw the ripples made by the fins of the brute down there,

and the silver glisten of those fins--we saw the water tinge from

green to pale pink and then to red, until, at last, the dead man's

blood had overmastered the sea's natural colour.

Meanwhile still the rebellious ones shouted and bawled; while some who

were older cursed and blasphemed, another wept, and still another--the

first one whom Phips had beat down--tried, all bound as he was, to

rush at him and strike him with his manacled hands, or bite at him.

But now the captain paused, though ever with his eye on this fellow,

and spake and said:

"Well, my hearts, how like you mutineering against the King's Grace,

eh? and against me who stand here for the King? 'Tis profitable, is it

not--far more so than hunting for the plate-ship, with three good

meals of jerked pork and drink into you every day? What say you?"

All but that mad and furious one shouted still for mercy--he standing

apart glowering--and clasped their hands and said that, if he would

but spare them, never more would they think of aught but their duty to

the King and him--"only, only," they wailed, "not the sharks, not the

sharks!"

"Well," says he, at last, "since you are but beaten hounds and know

it, it shall not be the sharks this time--only, henceforth, beware!

For if ever again one of you so much as mutter a word of disaffection,

so surely shall your blood tinge the waters round as the blood of that

mutineer tinges it now. You hear?"

They said they heard, and that there was no fear that ever would they

offend more, no, not if the _Algier Rose_ stayed there a century, so

then Phips spake again, while 'twas noticed by us officers that never

did he include the first man--whose name was Brooks--in his address,

nor did he cast his eyes once towards him now.

"So be it," he said, "and so it must be. For remember ever, 'tis not

against me you offend and rebel, who am but a servant like yourselves,

and was, a few short years ago, but a poor sailor also like

yourselves; but against the King and the country, who, sending us

here, believe and confide in us. Therefore, to mutiny is to commit

treason, and for both of these the punishment is Death. But, since

this is your first offending, I spare you death--yet must you be

punished. Therefore, now listen. Until the frigate touches English

waters once again, or until we strike soundings in the Channel, all of

you rebels must take a double night-watch, at sea or anchor, and no

drink must you have whatsoever, nor ever any leave. Are you content,

or have you a better mind for the sharks?"

Poor, wretched fools! What could they say but that they were

content--and so they were unbound and set free.

Then, turning to Brooks, and with those fierce and terrible eyes upon

him, he continued--

"For you, you are but as a savage beast, and unrepentant. Therefore, I

still mean to fling you to the sharks, or to, perhaps, maroon you. Yet

will I decide nothing in haste; the sharks," he said, very grim, "are

always there, so, too, are many islands on which to cast you alone. I

will take time to think how to punish you."

Can it be conceived that this idiot and wretch, even at such a moment

of peril as this, should be still so hardened as to defy Phips! Yet so

he did. First he gnashed his teeth at the Captain, and then he swore a

great oath that, were he free, he would kill him. And, though he

muttered this under his lips, yet Phips heard him.

For a moment he paused, looking fixedly at him, then he called up some

of the men who had retreated forward, and said:

"Lower him over to the sharks." And all of us, officers and men, did

shudder as we heard the order. "Only," he went on, "since still am I

merciful, remembering that I am naught but the servant of the King,

lower him by degrees two feet at a time. Then, if by the period he has

reached the water's edge he sues not for pardon, let the sharks have

him;" saying which he turned on his heel and entered again his cabin.

It was done, amidst the curses of Brooks and his fightings to be free.

Longwise, he was lowered, face downwards, and, although twice the

lines were lengthened so that, from being twelve feet above the waters

he was at last but eight, still only would he revile the King, the

captain, and all.

"Thou fool," I called down to him, as, indeed did his shipmates,

"recant, and sue for pardon." But still he would not, raving ever.

"Lower," I commanded to the men--"two feet more;" and by two feet so

much nearer was he to the beasts below, who now began to disturb the

water once again and cause it to heave, and to show their fins and

hideous eyes. Still he would not and so, with another order, down he

went to four feet from the surface. And now the water was all ruffled

and bubbling as though boiling, or as 'tis when a child throws a cake

to the trouts in a fishpond, and the eyes of the man looking down into

the sea were looking into the eyes of the horrid things gazing up. Yet

still, though he was now silent, he would not call for mercy.

The sweat was standing at this time on all our brows and, in very

truth, our hearts were softened towards him--for if a villain he was a

brave one--and almost did my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth,

for the time had come for a fresh order that would bring him to two

feet. So I paused, hoping he would plead, yet he did not.

"Brooks," I called now, very low, for I wished to spare the man, and

wanted not Phips to hear me. "Brooks, this is, indeed, your very last

occasion. Will you yield?"

_He answered not_.

Then, as I was about, perforce, to do my duty, the water heaved and

surged more than before, and, leaping up from the sea as leaps the

grayling from the pool to take the fly, there came two great monstrous

sharks, their loathsome jaws extended so that the yellow teeth were

quite visible, they evidently driven beyond endurance by the sight of

the tempting bait so near. In that instant all shuddered and drew

back, daring not to look below, the sweat poured out all over us now,

and from the side there came a fearful, piercing scream of agony and

the voice of Brooks calling, "In God's mercy draw me up, oh! draw me

up. I am penitent. Pity! Pity!"

The sharks in their frenzied leap had struck against each other and,

instead of seizing their victim, had but hurled each other back into

the sea, and thus he was spared. So we drew him up, and with this

ended the first mutiny of the _Algier Rose_.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE SECOND MUTINY.

And now I commence again.

Two years more had passed, and still we had not found the plate.

Very disheartened were we all by now, you may be sure, perhaps the one

who kept himself best being the captain, who still hearkened after the

astrologer's prophecy. Yet this, while still he did so, he chided

himself for, saying that it became not a Puritan of New England to

believe in any such things.

"For," says he, "in my colony they are now burning witches and

wizards, geomancers, astrologers, and those which pretend to be Cabala

with the stars, to say nought of quack-salvers and saltim-bancoes, so

that I am but a degenerate son. Yet not of my mother neither; for she,

as I have told you, Nick"--as now he called me--"bought an

astrologer's pricked paper and found it come true. Still, wrong

as I do, I cannot but think the caster was right. Then, if so,

must we wait another year; for by that time I shall have arrived

at my thirty-seventh."

That he would have waited had not the King--but you shall hear.

We had now arrived, as I have said, at our fourth year out, and at

this time Phips, who had one moment, as I have also writ, the idea of

staying until his thirty-seventh year, and at another the mind to take

the frigate home and confess to the King that he had failed, decided

to have the ship's bottom cleaned, or, as 'tis called, breamed.

Therefore, for this purpose we moved her somewhat away from the

"Boylers" to a little island, of which there is a multitude

hereabout--for we would not go to the mainland for fear of a broil

with the Spaniards--and there careened her.

Now, a sweet little isle this was as any one might wish to see--though

very small, and on the charts tho' not the maps,--all covered over

with a small forest in which grew the palm, the juniper, the caramite

and acajou, as well as good fruits, such as limes, toronias, citrons,

and lemons. Also, too, there were here good streams of fair fresh

water all running about, at which one might stoop to lave themselves

or to drink their fill. Ofttimes we had been over there before,

especially to fetch in our boats the fresh water and the limes, for

since our tubs of beer[2] had long since run dry this was our only

beverage. Moreover, here we came in boats when we took our spells of

leave, and, lying down in the little forest, would try to forget the

tropic heat of where we had now been stationed so long, and would send

our minds shooting back to memories of cool English lanes all shotted

with the sweet May and the Eglantine, of our dear grey skies and our

pleasant wealds.

But now we were come in the ship to work and not to take our ease, for

breaming is, as sailors know, no lightsome task. Yet, too, there was a

pleasant relaxation even in this, for, since the frigate was not

liveable when careened over, all of us were bestowed ashore. So, too,

were the remaining stores, of which in most things we still had a

plenty, and so, too, were the great guns, they being placed around our

encampment as though a fort. The ship herself was hove down by the

side of a rock which stretched out from the land a little way; and, so

that we could come at her and go to and fro with greater ease, we had

constructed a bridge made of a plank leading from the summit of the

rock to the shore, just above high water. 'Twas not long to the

beginning of the rock from the land, being some thirty feet, but once

on the rock itself one had to walk some hundred feet to reach where

the frigate was.

Now Phips, as ever, setting a good example, had with his own great

strong hands helped at hauling the ship over, and ashore he had

assisted in cutting down trees to make our encampment palisadoes, our

cabin roofs and wooden walls, and so forth. Never did he spare

himself, and thus endeavoured to keep harmony and good will among all,

officers and men alike.

As to the mutiny, 'twas now forgot, or at least we thought so. Brooks,

who had been the ringleader in it, seemed quite broken since the

episode with the sharks, and, perhaps, also a little with the

treatment since accorded him. Never had the Captain relaxed on

him--and but little on the others, tho' somewhat--and never had he

been permitted so much as an hour's leave or a sup of the beer while

the casks lasted, or to take more than one watch and one dog watch

below in the twenty-four hours. I say it broke him, yet I liked not

the look to be seen sometimes on his face; and 'twas more than once

that I bid the Captain observe him well, as also I did the subaltern

officers. But Phips only laughed, saying:

"Tush, Nick! We have scotched the villain; have no fear; what can he

do? Moreover, is not old Hanway a watch dog that never looses his eye

from him? And, as he knows, his friends the sharks are ever near."

So the memory of the mutiny slumbered or awakened but little, and time

went on and the breaming of the ship was a'most finished. We got her

clean at last, by a plentiful kindling of furze and oil and faggots,

so as to melt the old pitch about her, and were rapidly getting her

re-pitched and caulked, coated and stuffed, so that when we went back

to fish for another year she would be so clean and neat that, when we

upped anchor, we should be ready for home at once. Also we had righted

the ship again so that some few could live in her, and soon we meant

to bring back the stores, great guns and other things.

But now we were to learn over what a masked mine we had been

slumbering, and we were to see once more how the hand of Providence

was always guarding us, as, I thank God, it has ever done where I have

been concerned.

There were seven of us in the frigate one most glorious Sunday

afternoon--namely, the Captain and myself and five men, when, sitting

on the poop under an awning, he and I saw Hanway being supported

between two others from the little wood to the plank that reached the

shore. The man seemed sick enough by the way he dragged himself along

between those two, and we, wondering what ailed him, went up on to the

rock and so on to the hither side of the plank, and the Captain hailed

to know what was the mischief with him?

"Sir," calls back a sailor, one of those leading him, "he is took very

ill with a colic and wishes to go aboard to get a dram and rest. Will

you permit his coming?"

"And welcome," says Phips. "But how will it be for him to pass over

the plank?"

"We will come fore and aft of him, sir," says the man, "so he shall

not fall."

Receiving permission to do this, they started to reach the rock; and

by the foremost man walking backwards--which a sailor can do as easily

as a cat--and the other propping him up behind, they gotten him along

the plank.

"What ails you, man?" says the Captain kindly to him then, when he was

there, but Hanway only groaned and placed his hand on his stomach, so

that, sending the sailors back to the isle, we took him between us,

and so got him into the captain's saloon.

"A dram of brandy," says Phips, "is the thing for you, my man," and

with that he makes to call for his servant; when, to our extreme

astonishment, Hanway puts up his hand to stop him, and stands up, as

straight and well as ever he was.

"What foolishness is this?" asks Phips, with his brow all clouded;

"what mean you, Hanway, by this conduct?"

"Hush," says he, glancing round the cabin. "Hush! It means--there is

no one by, I trust!--it means _mutiny_ again, Captain. That's what it

means!"

"Does it so?" says he, all calm in a moment, though his eye wandered

to his sword and pistols hanging over the table--"does it so? And when

and how, Hanway?"

"To-night," says the carpenter; "and from the isle. I have heard it

all, though they know not I have heard one word. See, Captain, it was

thus. I was lying in the grass under a bush but an hour ago, when

there comes that most dreadful wretch, Brooks, with half a score

more, and sits himself down on the other syd, behind a clump of

cabbage-palms that grew next the bush. And so I heard all. Says he,

'Now, lads, to-night is our occasion, or never. To-night I must have

my account with Phips and Crafer, so that there shall be a new captain

and a new commander to the _Algier Rose!_"

"And who," asks Phips, "are to succeed us, Hanway?"

"Brooks, it seems, is to be captain in your place, sir," goes on the

carpenter, "and the master-at-arms, Taylor, is to be commander. For

the rest I know not; but, sir, let me tell you that, excepting

yourself and the officers, myself and the bos'un, all are mutineers,

and they mean to get the frigate if they can and go a-buccaneering to

the South Seas, as has been ever their intent since we could not fish

up the plate."

"Tis well, very well," says Phips, "but how will they do it? Can you

tell us that?"

"Brooks gives them this scheme, sir," continues Hanway. "'To-night, my

hearts,' said he to them, 'there is no moon. Therefore, what easier

than to take the ship? We can outnumber them quite easy--the big guns

are all ashore, there is not so much as a carronade in her. So, too,

are the small arms, the powder and ball; yet, since we must not injure

the _Algier Rose_, we must not fire into her, nor need we do so. For,'

says he, 'at about dawn, or a little before, we can all pass the plank

and reach the rock, when we can descend on the ship and put every one

to death that is not for us. And I,' says he, 'will particularly kill

Phips, whom I do hate most deadly.'"

Phips smiled and nodded his head pleasantly at this, for all the world

as though he had heard the dearest news, and then he says, "And, how

much more, Hanway?"

"Only this, sir," goes on the carpenter, "that Brooks knows not what

will be the distribution aboard and ashore of the men, and fears

therefore that he may get brought into the ship for the night--while

the officers may be ashore with the other mutineers."

"He need have no fear," says the captain, very sinister; "when the

muster is called it shall be arranged to suit him to his exact

pleasure. Now, Hanway, go you back ashore, mingle freely with them,

and trust to me and Mr. Crafer."

Then, when the carpenter had returned ashore, saying he had had a dram

and his pains were eased, Phips and I held a long consultation

together, and our plan was formed. How it worked you shall soon read.

But ere I go on I must rest my hand.

CHAPTER IX.

AND THE PREPARATIONS AGAINST IT.

It was an hour before sunset that the order was usually given to the

bos'un to pipe all hands to muster, and on this fair Sabbath evening

you may be sure it failed not. Now, since so much of the ship's

company was ashore it was the habit for the few in her to go also

ashore, so that the whole roll might be called. Therefore, on this

occasion we in the frigate went by the rock and plank to land, leaving

the vessel alone save but for two men on watch, and at once began the

muster.

The officers were partly divided, some to remain on the isle, some to

be in the frigate, I being of the former, the captain of the latter.

Now this plan had been communicated to all officers previous to the

muster; since Phips had asked two or three of them to supper with

him--of whom I was not one, but had, instead, gone on shore--and there

he had divulged the whole wicked story. There was not any more danger

to those who were ashore than to those in the ship, since Hanway had

gathered from some source that the officers on land were not to be

despatched until the ship herself was taken, and it was thought she

could be easier taken and with less noise than they could be murdered.

So that was to be done. Moreover, likewise had Hanway learned that

Brooks hoped some of the mutineers would be told off into the ship,

whereby they might lie in wait to spring out and assist their

brother-scoundrels when they boarded her, and this, on hearing, Phips

again said should be done.

"For," says he, "since they would have some of their comrades in the

frigate, they shall be obliged. Only, they will not know that when the

rounds are gone those choice companions will be prisoners all, with

bilboes on their feet and gags in their mouths."

And now, all arrangements being made, ashore we went to call this

muster. First I called the officers, naming for the shore myself, a

lieutenant, and the master's mate; for the ship, the Captain, the

second lieutenant, another mate, and the two gentlemen-midshipmen we

carried (we had three, but one was drowned coming out); these being,

when they joined the ship, little lads of eight and nine years, scarce

better than babes, but now grown big boys. Then, this done, I passed

to the others, bringing the carpenter and his mate into the frigate,

and likewise the bos'un and his. Next Brooks was called for the shore

with most of the known mutineers, excepting only some others of their

gang and companions in guilt into the ship. And when this was done

there was to be observed, by those who looked sharply, a glance pass

between them.

So 'twas arranged, and all was well for the foiling of these villains.

And thus, having well concerted our plans, we all went to our various

stations, the Captain walking back to the frigate with his complement,

and I in command of the shore party. And now must I relate all that

happened both with them--which I gathered afterwards--and with us on

land, which I saw. But first for the ship.

At sunset, which comes fast in these parts, the Captain, after

the rounds, stationed in his cabin on each side of the door the

bo'sun--who was enormous in size--and the carpenter, Hanway; then,

sending for each of the known mutineers one by one into the cabin, he

had them knocked on the head as they came in, bilboes put on their

feet, and they carried down amongst the ballast. With them he put a

good guard, who had orders that should they cry out--tho' if they did

none could have heard them on the isle--they should instantly be

despatched; so they were safe and secure, and henceforth he had but to

deal with those ashore. Next he sent for the midshipmen, who, coming

into his cabin, he demanded of them which was the lightest in weight;

for, said he, "I have work for one of you young lads to-night that

shall make a mate of you if you do well."

Now, of these boys--one named Fanshawe, the other Caldwell (who as I

now write commands the _Lizard_, of twenty-four guns, he having been

promoted out of the _Richmond_)--the latter was by far the lighter, he

being very lean and spare. Therefore, to him says Phips:

"My boy, you must do a good service to-night, so I hope you have a

strong heart;" to which the lad said he hoped indeed he had; tho',

later on, he told me that at that moment his thoughts went flying off

to home and to his mother, who had cryed so bitterly when she brought

him down to go to sea.

"Well," says Phips, "now this you have to do. We will get from Hanway

a bolt--such as those of the big guns--and what you must perform is

this. To-night at the darkest you shall creep from the rock to the

plank, and so to the middle of it, and, when there, you will first fix

a staple under the board, then through that you will run the bolt.

Next, where its head will enter you must make a mortise--another

staple will do very well--and then when all is fixed you shall, with a

bradawl and a gimlet, so bore the board that t'will yield to any

weight when the bolt is unshotted. You understand, my lad?"

The boy's eyes sparkled, for he was stout of heart, and he answered

readily that he comprehended; and so Phips goes on:

"Then, when all this is done, to the eye of the bolt you shall attach

a line and so bring it back under the plank to the further end of the

rock, where some one or other shall take it from you. Now, my boy,

there is little of danger to you if you are careful. And, remember,

first fix your staple, then your bolt, and, last of all, pierce and

bore the plank and do it well, and so shall you earn your higher rank.

Now go, sleep until we wake you."

The lad told us afterwards he slept not in his hammock at all, but

rather repeated to himself his instructions again and again, so as to

be perfect; and thus the time wore on, and, at last, there was that

thick inky darkness that comes in tropic nights. Then Phips summoned

him, repeated to him once more his orders, and the boy prepared to

speed on his work.

"I cannot, my little lad," said Phips, "go with you, nor send the men;

the plank would not bear our big forms when bored, and they might see

us. Otherwise, and if I could do it, I would not send one of such

tender years as thou art. So be brave, and so fare-ye-well and a

speedy return."

He laid his great hand on the boy's shoulder as he spake, and bid him

again "God speed;" and then the child went forth, his little heart

quite brave and cheerful. Only, when he was gone, they found he had

left upon his sea-chest, writ large, the place where his mother lived

and to where she might be addressed if he came back no more; and also

he had writ a little prayer to Phips that he would speak well of him

to her, and say that he died in his duty.

That he might so die all knew; and from his writing they learned he

knew it, too. For there were many ways to it. The mutineers would

doubtless shoot him if they saw him on the plank, and so begin their

wicked work at once, or the plank might fall under him, or he fall off

it in the dark, when it was well possible--the water being deep

enough--that the sharks should have him.

So he went forth, and, of those who saw him go, one or two crept along

the rock after him to watch and see if all was well, and they

observed, and told afterwards, how he never faltered in his task.

Through the darkness of that black night he creeped upon the plank,

making no noise, and, laying himself flat out upon it, went to work.

Once those behind said they heard the muffled sound of the screws as

he fixed tight the staples--though those who knew not what was a-doing

might have thought 'twas but the creaking of the board! And once they

heard him let fall a screw into the water that plumped in with a

little splash. But that was all, and presently by his breathing they

heard him coming back. He had done his work--the springe was set! He

had done that work well, too, only, so wrought upon was his mind,

that, when he once more stood upon the deck of the frigate, he

fainted, and fell into the Captain's arms as the latter spake

approvingly to him.

Now, therefore, there was nought for them on the ship to do but to

wait the coming of the dawn--tho' all in her hoped the mutineers might

make their attack ere then. For, if they came when the dayspring was

about, it was possible they might perceive the piercings of the plank:

while, if they came earlier, they could see nought.

And so, I say, the night went on and the stars above began to

pale--the great Southern Cross turned from her deep crimson to a

white, and the dews from the little island sent forth innumerable

scents and perfumes. Meanwhile, nought could be heard from the shore

by those in the ship, for all was still as death; while on the water

round the rock a gentle splash alone was heard, telling that those

watchers of it, the sharks, were looking ever for some prey. And, by

now, several of the ship's company, headed by Phips, had creeped along

the rock towards where the plank was, and, heavily armed, and hidden

as much as possible, were waiting to see what movement was forthcoming

and when the attack was to be made.

CHAPTER X.

AND HOW IT WAS ENDED.

And now must I return to the party on shore, with which I was.

The watch being set--which throughout the night I took very good care

should be composed of those whom I had reason to consider the worst of

the mutineers--we, the officers, turned into the hut that had been

constructed and set apart for all of that rank. Of course we knew what

the intention of the Captain was as to the sawing of the plank, and,

indeed, were quite cognizant of when young Caldwell was at work on it,

though none of the rebels were so. Moreover, when I had reason to

suppose he was at his business, I, affecting a merciful disposition

towards them which I did not in any way feel, went out to where they

lay and told the men on watch to turn in awhile, as I and one of the

lieutenants would take the look out for a spell.

Now this I had not planned with the captain previously, it being an

afterthought, yet I took credit to myself for its being an excellent

one. For see what good came of it! Firstly, it removed the mutinous

watch from the open where they might have seen or heard the lad, since

the encampment lay but a hundred yards or so inland from the beach;

and, secondly, it played the game, as they say, into their hands. For

they minded not for us, the officers, to be on the alert at this early

part of the night, but would, as I knew, rather have it so, for they

wanted us asleep in the latter part when they meant to set about their

dirty work. And it lulled them, as after-events showed, into false

security; for, seeing that we treated them so kindly, they never

dreamed we had one idea of all their treachery.

And to further this idea in their minds, after eight bells had struck

from the frigate, and a fresh watch set, I went in to the men in their

huts, and seeing Brooks sitting up and looking very wideawake, I said

to him--though in my mind I would sooner have thrust my sword through

his heart:

"Brooks," I said, "we are all sleepy now; therefore we will turn in.

And since there is scarce any necessity for caution here--none being

able to attack this little isle of ours--relieve your watch somewhat."

"Ay, ay, sir," says Brooks, while yet by the oil flame I could see the

devil's light shining in his wicked eye. "Ay, ay, sir. What shall I

do?"

"Let most of the watch rest themselves. What need that all should

labour? We fear nought here. Leave but two men on watch--the frigate

is herself a guard-ship--and let us take some repose. Only, as I and

the other officers are very sleepy, call us not until the day watch;

let us not be disturbed."

"I'll warrant you, sir," said Brooks, and positively the fiend hid his

head in the shadow so that I might not see the grin on his face,

though I saw it well enough, be sure. "I'll warrant you, sir, you

shall not be troubled." Whereon I bade him good night, and so back to

our hut.

"Now," says I to my comrades when I entered, "all is indeed well. We

have but to keep quiet, and these wretches will go to destruction

their own way. For, see now, they must be caught between two fires!

Once they are on the plank, or some of them, they will be in the water

the next moment if Caldwell has but done his work well. And even

though he has not, what matters? From the rock they will be shot down,

and from the shore by us, while we have this hut for a fort if needed.

So now, while we pretend sleep, let us be watchful and await the good

time."

Then, very quietly, we saw to our arms, the bite of our swords and the

priming of our pistols. Also had we in the hut some musketoons, very

good ones, each loaded with five ounces of iron, which had been

brought in from the ship when careened and placed here to guard

against rust, as well as some peteraroes loaded with old broken iron

and rusty nails, which could well be fired through the doorway.

And now we three put out our light, wishing each other "Good night"

somewhat loudly, so that if any were creeping or crawling about they

could not but hear, and at intervals of our long vigil we would snore,

sometimes in concert, sometimes singly, so as more to deceive them.

And in this manner passed the night, we hearing and counting all the

bells as they struck in the ship.

At last there was a stir. Soft as was the grass around, we could hear

stealthy footfalls; presently in the open window-frame--purposely left

open by us the better to deceive these villains--we saw a face look in

on us and again withdrawn, we heard a whispered talk outside, and then

they went away. We knew the attack was about to begin. So, when the

footsteps had retreated and we imagined that by now they must have

gotten down to the beach (and, indeed, silently as they went, we could

hear the pebbles crack and rustle beneath their bare feet), slowly I

rose and glanced out from the side of the window. But only to draw

back my head on the instant, for there, they not being such fools as

might have been supposed, were two of the mutineers on guard, one on

each side of the window. At present, 'twas evident they thought not

that we were awake, since each was leaning with his back to the walls

of the hut gazing after his companions, and I had time to ponder on

what I must do.

First, I had the intelligence to say nought to either of my comrades,

while for sign I could give none, seeing that, as yet, the day was not

come--though afar off a saffron tinge in the sky heralded its near

approach--and then I took time to reflect. Now, had there been but one

man he had been soon despatched, for I could from the window have run

him through, or cut his throat ere he could make any noise. But with

two it was different. So, I say, I pondered deep. Yet, soon, this was

what I resolved to do. I would go again to the window and then would

remain there, a pistol in each hand, and, the moment I heard any

scuffle or noise from the neighbourhood of the rock, would fire into

their heads. Meanwhile, should they discover that we were awake, yet

would I do the same thing--and the noise would but serve to warn our

friends over there. So now I crept to the lieutenant and the master's

mate, and, touching them gently in the dark, put my fingers on each of

their lips, and then away again to the window.

So I was there, ready for them, for though they had each in their

hands a musketoon there was nought to fear. Ere they could lift them

the brains would be out, they would be gone--but at this moment up

came the sun as it had been promising, and in a moment all was flooded

with light. And at the same moment they saw me and gave a shout at

seeing my face close to them, and the two pistols to their ears. Poor

wretches! all rebels and mutineers as they were, what gain had they in

their evil? Ere the shout had finished they were dead outside the hut;

even dead before the report had ceased to ring. Yet I had spoilt

nothing by my haste, for as now the daylight poured over all I saw

that the attack on the rock had begun, and, a moment afterwards, we

had rushed pell mell from the hut to assist in taking the mutineers in

the flank. And, now, I will write down exactly how our position was.

On the rock there stood Phips with all his men by his side, on the

plank were two or three of the mutineers with Brooks at their head,

and smiling quite gay was Phips, as he called out.

"And 'good morning' to you, Captain Brooks, as I hear you are to be

to-day. My compliments to you, Captain Brooks, for a better frigate

than the _Algier_----"

"To, hell with your compliments," howled back Brooks, "and your

scoffs. Yet we mean to have the ship, anyway; so come on. We are

eighty to ten so you must yield."

"Must I, indeed," says Phips, "well, we will see for that."

Meanwhile I had perceived what was my office, and so, going back with

the lieutenant and the master's mate--all unperceived by the

mutineers, who had been quite engrossed wyth those on the rock, so

that they saw not our sally forth--we dragged out the peteraroes and a

little old Lombard we had, very good for throwing a big shot, and

lighting our fuse we gave them a rousing broadside and did good

execution. The Lombard crashed down four of them, while the peteraroes

did great slaughter, and we gave them a volley from the musketoons,

and so in amongst them with our cutlashes and very busy.

Meantime Phips and his party were firing into them from the

rock--though not at Brooks and those on the plank, which was shaking

under their weight as they advanced; and now the captain shouted to

him, "Come on, Captain Brooks, come on and take command of your ship.

Come on, I say."

And on Brooks went, hurling oaths like a tempest howling across the

sea, and followed by the others; while, now and again, he yelled out,

"We are betrayed; we are betrayed," and so got fair into the middle of

the plank.

And then he saw, but too late, the snare in which he had been taken.

For it bent so under their weight and also gave so that, looking down,

he saw it was all bored and pierced so as to be by now almost apart,

and kept up only by the great gun-bolt.

"Back! back!" he screamed then to the others. "Back! See, oh God! see,

the plank gives, it yields, we are undone!" And then from him there

came a worse cry, a thrilling blood-curdling shout, for he saw what

was below him. The sharks which do infest all parts of these waters

had come again--attracted, doubtless, by the blood of the killed and

wounded and the dead bodies in the water, which already they were busy

at; and with them and fighting them for the prey, were fierce

crocodiles--or, as they are called by the Spanish, the allagartos.

"For God's sake, back!" he howled, "back, I say!" But those behind

could not turn back because we were there, and so they met their doom.

With one more scoff and jeer Phips and a sailor pulled at the line,

the great gun-bolt came forth from the mortise, or staple--the boy had

done well his work overnight!--the plank broke with a crash, and down

they went.

And as they went we saw the great snouts of the crocodiles come at

them, and tear them below with a snapping dreadful to hear, we saw the

sharks heave over on their sides to take their prey, we heard one wild

and awful yell from each of these villains, and all was over with

them. As for the others who were not killed, they threw down their

arms and implored mercy, and so were bound and carried away for the

time.

And in this way ended the second and last mutiny in the _Algier Rose_,

wherefore I will again rest awhile.

CHAPTER XI.

THEY HAVE TO DESIST.

Now, by this time Phips was within a month of his thirty-sixth year,

and we had been out on our fishing expedition four years almost, it

being the end now of 1686 of our Lord.

"So," says Phips, "another month will see me into my thirty-seventh,

and then, Nick, we must have the plate."

"Whereby you mean to say," I observed, "that you do, indeed, believe

in that Jack Pudding's prophecy that at that time you shall find it.

Yet I should scarce have thought, sir, that so stalwart a sailor as

you would have hearkened much to such as he."

"I hearkened to him," replied he, "because I am a sailor, and

therefore, like unto you, Nick, and all of us, given unto believing in

auguries. Yet, reflect also on what other reasons I have. First, there

was my dear mother, whose doings were most rightly foretold; and next

was there the vow I always made that, some day, I would command a

King's ship. Well, that have I done, though without finding the

plate-carrack, and therefore I am positive that when my thirty-sixth

year is past I shall do so."

"I trust you may," says I, "yet in four years it has not been done;

how, therefore, shall it now be done in one?"

"We will fish in other waters," says he; "we will try another side of

the reef. We will have it, Nick--have it somehow."

Yet, as you who read this paper shall see, it was not until his

thirty-seventh yeare came--proving thereby, alas! that wizards and

astrologers, who are the children of the devil, can speak truth

sometimes--that it was to be taken from where it had lain for its

forty-four or fifty years. Meanwhile I must perforce write down all

that happened before that time.

To begin, therefore, the mutiny was, as you have seen, over, and so

rooted up and crushed down also were the men that it was impossible

there could be another. Of killed there were thirty-one, including

Brooks and the man who was to have had my place, and there was

something like twenty-five prisoners; the remainder of the crew,

though but few, being tried men and loyal to us. Some of the dead we

took into the middle of the beach and buried, while the sharks and

crocodiles provided the graves for the others without any trouble to

us; and then, all being done that was necessary, we left this sweet

little harbour of ours, which, had it not been stained by the horrid

mutiny and its outcome, we should have turned away from with regret.

But, considering what had happened there, we went back to the blazing

sea quite joyfully to begin once more our search.

For those mutineering ruffians who were not killed, it would have been

easier to them if they had been. They worked now under the boiling

tropic sun in chains, their hands alone being free wherewith to assist

the divers; they were given no more food than would actually keep them

alive and enable them to work; they had but one watch off during the

twenty-four hours, and over them ever was an officer with a loaded

pistol to his hand, ready to shoot them down. And, worse than this,

whenever we should return to Spithead there they would be hanged to

the yard-arm, as they would have been ere this to the yard-arm of the

_Algier Rose_, had they not been wanted to work the ship home when her

time came to go. Verily, they had gained little by their wicked

foolishness!

So in this way the weeks slipped by and still we found no plate, yet

was Phips firm. His commission was for five years, which would carry

him well into that thirty-seventh year for which he longed so, and

that commission he fully meant to serve, when, lo! there happened a

thing that for a time changed all his plans, though not for long,

owing to Providence, as you shall read.

One morning when the day broke, the lookout descried, some two

leagues from us and our reef, a great frigate sailing very free and

bearing down towards us, while to our joy we saw that she carried our

own dear English colours. Now, in all the three years and a half that

had passed, or nearly four, no ship of our own country had come

anywhere near us, although often enough had we thought we saw them

pass afar, as, indeed, they must have done on their way to some of the

West Indie Islands. Yet, as I say, none had come to us, and so we had

no news from the world without. But that this frigate was making for

us there could be now no doubt; already, she was so near that she was

shortening her sail, and, not long afterwards, she fired a salute,

which we returned with joyous hearts. Then she hove-to, and signalled

to us that the Captain was to go aboard.

You may be sure that he went very willingly, the ship proving to be

the _Guinea_, and an old Commonwealth frigate I knew very well, and a

good sailer; and brave enough did Phips look as he took his seat in

his boat, all adorned in his best scarlet coat and his great wig;

"for," says he, "hot as the morning is, and will be hotter, I will not

go to greet a brother-captain foully dressed."

That we in the _Algier Rose_ waited impatiently enough for the news

you may be sure, and, since 'twas long a-coming, that impatience

became very great. Indeed, 'twas not till night was near at hand that

we saw the boat coming back to us, while at the same time we saw the

great frigate's topsayl fill, and observed her slowly gather way and

steer towards the west. Then, a while later, the Captain came aboard,

and, sending for me into his cabin, he said, while I noticed that his

face was grave and sad:

"Nick, we have to give up the search; we shall not get the plate now.

The frigate was, as doubtless you made out, the _Guinea_, on her way

to Jamaica to relieve the _Constant Warwick_, and brought me my orders

to go home."

"But," said I, "the commission was for five years; they are not yet

expired."

"Nay," says he, "that matters not. The King is dead, and has been so

for a year, and the Duke of York has succeeded him. And he believes

not in putting the ships of his navy to treasure hunts, deeming such

things better for private adventurers. Moreover, he says the _Algier

Rose_ can do better service at home against his enemies--of which the

Captain of the _Guinea_ says he has a many--than in fishing for plate.

So, to-morrow, Nick, we will take in water from the island, and away

to England."

"'Tis pity," says I, "a many pities. Yet the King's orders must be

obey'd. And the plate--I wonder who will get that?"

"I shall," said Phips sharply, "and you, Nick, if you will follow me.

For the very moment I give up my command of this ship, I shall seek

out those private adventurers of whom the new King speaks. I would

pawn my life the thing is there, and I will have it. Am I a man to be

thwarted?"

Indeed, he was no such a man--only, as I whispered to him, he must, if

still he believed in his Geomancer, be very sharp. He would be in his

thirty-seventh year by the time he set foot on English ground again.

"Ay, ay," says he, while he took a great drink from his cup and passed

it to me, "and so I shall, But before the thirty-seventh year is gone,

I shall be back again--and you shall be with me, Nick, an' you will."

For myself 'twas very easy to say I would come. If James was king now,

then he would have for officers of his ships all those who had served

him when he was a sailor, and never had I been one of those. Moreover,

I had no interest with either Edward Russell--who is now as I write

Earl of Orford--or with Rooke, both of whom were like to be the King's

great seamen; so that there was little enough likelihood that I should

get another ship. There were just now hundreds of worthy sailors

waiting for appointments, and I had no better chance than, if as good

as, they. Also was I gone my time, having been now at sea since 1656,

when I went a boy of eight, so that I was nigh forty years of age, and

was never like now to be a captain, being but a plain sailor and no

gentleman courtier or page of honour. Had I been that and not known

the maintruck from the keel, then, perhaps, might I have gotten a ship

at twenty. But enough of this, only I had a mind to come out with

Phips if he came again as an adventurer; and that we should see when

we got home.

A week later we had wooded and watered from our isle, and the wind

being fair away we went, while the last piece of counsel we received

came from the beastly great negro of whom I have writ before. This

creature's name was Juan, he having been born at San Domingo city, a

Spanish slave, which he no longer was, and as we had always thought,

though we were never convinced thereof, had egged on Brooks and the

others to mutiny by telling of them that we were a-fishing in the

wrong pool--as anglers at home say--but that if they could take the

frigate from Phips, whom he hated, he could show them where the plate

really was.

So now he shouted to us from his periaga, as 'tis called there,

"_Adios, Don Phipo, adios_. Berry sorie, Massa, you no find platy, but

you look not in proper place. You ever come back again, which not

berry like, you send for Juan and pay him better, he show you many

tings if he not show it someone else firsty. _Adios, Don Phipo, adios

cada uno_, I hope you berry nice cruise to Englishy waters. _Adios_,"

and with that he hoisted his little sail and was gone.

Phips scowled at him first and then burst out a-laughing, while one of

the sailors flung a musket ball at him, and so we sailed away

disappointed men.

"A very nice cruise" it was not our good fortune to have, for we were

teased and pestered with contrary winds and storms all the way. Then

we got into the Horse latitudes--where the Spanish used to throw their

horses overboard on their way to the Indie Islands, to lighten their

ships so that they could move in the calm--or called by some the

Doldrums--and here we lay for some weeks. There we suffered much in

every way. The sea is here like glass, there is not a wind to stir a

sa'l nor to refresh the panting men, and the air is like a furnace.

Moreover, here the seams of a ship will yawn, the meat become rotten,

and the hoops shrink away off the casks so that they burst and leak,

letting out the water--of beer we had naturally none left. The sea,

too, looks lyke oil and not water, while the setting of the sun gives

one the idea that the whole world is a-fire. Great crimson fleaks of

flames blaze all across the heavens, then tinges of saffron, green,

and pink shoot up, and then comes the grey darkness, as though 'twas

the smoke after the fire.

And while we who were free all this time suffered so, 'twas far worse

and more terrible with the condemned mutineers, for, being down in the

ballast, since there was nought for them to do on deck while we lay

still, their agonies from the heat were insufferable. Five of them did

die--even though at the last they were fetched above--and so 'twas

better for them, since had they lived there was nought but the hanging

at Spithead before them.

Thus, when at last we got a wind which took us home--and a roaring,

tearing wind indeed it was, that sent us often under bare poles with

fear every moment that our crazy frigate with her open seams must go

to the bottom--we worked very short-handed. Yet home at last we did

get, looking like scarecrows in a field, and so yellow that those who

knew us said that, if we had found no silver, at least we had brought

a plenty of gold on our faces. Yet right glad were we to see old

England again after so long, and to sleep once more in a good English

bed.

CHAPTER XII

THE BARK "FURIE."

Now I will not write down much as to how we found the state of things

on our return, yet somewhat must I say.

To begin with--all of which was very bad for our hopes of getting

another ship--we found the King a dreadful declared Papist and with

most of the nation against him. Moreover, he was passing daily laws

and regulations for the oppression of the Protestants, so that he was

much hated, and all the world wagged its head and said that so extreme

a tyrant must ruin England unless a change came. And some there were

who even went so far as to say he had poisoned King Charles--though

this was never proved, and concerns not my history, to which I now

return.

When the _Algier Rose_ was paid off (which was done in a way shameful

to our navy--namely, by giving us but half of what was due and the

other half in promises, which were not fulfilled until the next King's

reign, and then only with difficulty to us) Phips and I, who went to

live together near the Strand, saw very soon that we should get no

other King's ship to go back to Hispaniola. His Ministers laughed at

us when we sounded them; one old nobleman asking us if we thought his

Majesty had not enough to do with his vessels, without sending them on

any such fool's errand as this? And, indeed, he was right, for things

were thickening round James, we being come to the year 1687. People

had not forgot the Monmouth rebellion and its brutalities, of which we

heard now for the first time; they hated the King's doings and his

mass in the chapel, and although he had a great big army at Hounslow

this year--which Phips and I rode down to see--all the soldiers had an

aversion to his religion, excepting the few Papists among them. On the

sea he was not very busy just now, and no fighting done since we went

away; yet it was ever thought that trouble would come--as indeed it

did, though not in the way expected.

So, therefore, as now you will see who read, we had to turn our

thoughts to other ways, and at once we began to look about for some

proprietors who would send us forth to look again for the Hispaniola

plate.

At first we had no success. Indeed, in the City, to which we resorted,

the project was treated by the merchants and goldsmiths with extreme

contempt, they jeering at us; while one of the latter told us he had

gotten together more plate than he desired, and would cheerfully sell

us some. But this was not our business, so we looked again. And now,

at last, we heard of one who we thought would do for us--our knowledge

of him being produced and brought to us by a friend who knew what we

were seeking for. And the person to whom he pointed was Christopher

Monk, the second Duke of Albemarle.

This nobleman had in no ways ever done aught to carry on the great

reputation of his father; but, instead, he had, on coming into a most

enormous fortune at that father's death, twenty years ago, given

himself up to loose and vicious courses, as well as having a

ravenous liking for drink. Yet one fancy he had which improved on

this, and was very good for us and our desires--viz., he loved to hear

of treasure-finds, of the sacking of cities for plunder: such as those

of Drake in the Indies in the Great Queen's reign, or of Sir Henry

Morgan, the buccaneer who sacked Panama and Porto Bello, wherefore the

late King gave him the government of Jamaica, which Albemarle was

afterwards himself to have; and, above all, of the digging up of

hidden wealth. So to him, having obtained a letter introducing us,

away went Phips and I to see what might be done.

He listened very attentively to us and, when Phips said he did in

truth believe there was three hundred thousand pounds under the water,

he sighed and said he would he could have some of it, for he wanted

money badly. This we could well believe; for though his father left

him so vast a fortune, he was a heavy gambler, and his Duchess--a

half-witted creature, granddaughter of the Duke of Newcastle, to whom

he was married before his dying father, as he lay on his bed--had

ravaged him with her extravagance and debts.

So says Phips to him:

"Then, your Grace, if you will have it you shall. Find me but a ship

well fitted and this very year--no other--it shall be yours. It is

there, I know; I have much evidence it is; and though I have fished in

the wrong place hitherto, yet now will I find it. And, as I say, it is

my year."

"Why, sir," said the Duke, "why this year more than any other?"

Yet this Phips would not tell him--confiding in me afterwards that,

though he believed in the astrologer, he was ashamed of his belief.

So, then, next says the Duke:

"But why seek not the Spanish, or the French, who have now gotten

possession of the North of Hispaniola, if not all of the island, for

this plate? 'Tis worth their while, if 'tis worth mine."

"Your Grace," says Phips, "it is not possible they should seek for it.

Ever and always are they fighting together for possession, when not

massacring of the natives--of whom three millions have been slain

since Columbus's day--and truly they have neither time nor

inclination, even if they believe, which all do not. Then, for private

adventurers, there are none among them who can or will risk the money;

so that if any find it it must be an Englishman."

In this way, and with many other arguments and proofs, did Phips press

it on the Duke--particularly leaning on the boat that came ashore,

after the wreck of the carrack, full of plate; so that, at last, he

said he would think well upon it, and bade us come again in a week's

time.

"For," says he, "of myself I cannot now do it, though I could very

well once"--and here he sighed--"when I had my father's fortune. But

now I am no longer rich and am even petitioning the King for

employment, and have the promise of Jamaica. Still I will see among my

friends, and I will ask the King's permission. He, you know, must have

a tenth and adventure nothing."

"Let his Majesty have it," says Phips, "and then I'll warrant your

Grace there shall be enough to satisfy all."

"Sir, you are very sanguine," says the Duke. "But there, come in a

week and you shall hear."

So we made our bow and left him.

Now, I have so much yet to write of the finding of the plate and then

all that followed, as well as to tell you, who may read, how you shall

also find a fortune if you will seek, that I must waste no space, but

crowd on with my story.

So I will briefly write down that, when the week was past, we went to

the Duke's again, and he coming up to us--a little flustered with his

morning tankard, as I thought, though no ways drunk--takes Phips by

the hand and then me, and says he:

"Gentlemen, I think it is done, and we must send you out. So now

listen to what I have attempted."

And with that he bade his serving-men begone and see he was not

interrupted till he called. Then he went on:

"I have gotten," he said, "a ship for you, not so good as a King's

ship, yet well found, of a good burthen. The crew you shall pick up

yourselves--God knows there are many sailors now in London wanting

bread! Then, as for repayment, you and Captain Crafer"--for so he

called me, though I was no captain--"must be willing to be paid by

return, or what the merchants call a 'per centum.' Now, are you

willing to do this?"

We said we were very willing provided we were put to no expense for

provisions or furnishing of the ship, which we could not do, and he

said that matter should be arranged, as well as the payment of the

sailors, which must be part now and part hereafter, when we returned,

out of the proceeds. So after many more particulars we agreed to all,

and we left the Duke to go into the city and see the merchants, and

then to attend to fitting of the ship.

She was, we found, when we got to her in Limehouse Pool, after we had

spoken with the merchants very satisfactory, a good bluff-bowed bark

named the _Furie_, who had been employed in the slave trade, about

which we did not inquire too curiously, knowing very well what uses

the Guinea merchants put such ships to. Suffice it, therefore, if I

say she was large and roomy for her size, with many good cabins,

especially on the deck, a good main cabin, and a clear fo'castle. And

so we set to work to pick up a crew.

Now, as the Duke had truly said, there was no want of sailors just

now; for, firstly, we were not at war with any power; and, secondly,

the men went in but slowly to the King's ships of war because their

pay was so uncertain; and, thirdly, because all were against him,

hating the Papists he had gotten both into the navy and army, and

hating him too, as well as his Papist Queen, who had passed off

a false heir on the nation, as they said; and also his beastly

mistress, Sedley, now made Lady Dorchester. So when we went about the

taverns of Blackwall and Wapping, we soon picked up a likely crew

enough, and when we told what our cruise was for--namely, to get up a

treasure-ship--they were all eager to come. Therefore, at last we did

get more offers than we could well accept, seeing that we wanted but

twenty, and so made a good pick. Of them some were old King's men who

had seen much service like myself, two had taken part in Sir Robert

Holme's "bonefire," when he burnt up the Dutch ships, some more had

fought under Prince Rupert--as I did--when he beat De Ruyter, others

had fought against Selvagees' Armada, and all were of much experience.

Now, therefore, we had but to victual the bark and to put in our beer

and water, and all was ready; so to it we went, the merchants behaving

very generously. Yet, since Phips felt sure--owing to his belief in

his precious geomancer, who was doubtless hanged for a knave ere

now--that we should not be gone a year, we by no means overloaded her.

Still, all was very well; we went out with a plenty of beef and pork,

a gallon of beer a man every day for some months, with, after that,

some spirituous liquors, and with good pease and oatmeal as well as

bread. Also, which was of equal need, we had good arms, taking

with us new cutlashes and muskets, several cannon, including two

thirty-two-pound ones and a twenty-four, some pierriers, or

swivel-guns, very useful, and several others. And, since this time we

hoped not to fail, we took all applications for diving, such as a

bell, pumps, bladders for the head, and so forth, such as was used at

Mull for fishing up part of the Spanish Armada in the beginning of the

late King's reign.

And so we went away again to find, as you shall read, the Hispaniola

Plate. But to set it down baldly and to say only that we did so find

it, would be to give no help to those who shall come after me,

whensoever that shall be. Therefore, when next I take up my pen I must

tell of all our doings, of the way in which the treasure was gotten,

and of that uncommon villain who was soon now to appear amongst us,

and who did, in very truth, by his extreme villainies, lead to my

crowding the paper as I do for the benefit of those who follow me.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE OLD MAN'S STORY.