THE REASON WHY THE VOYAGE WAS UNDERTAKEN
At this point it is necessary that the reader should be made
acquainted with what has been only hinted up to this point. We mean
the reason why it was that the little schooner _Coral_, under the
charge of Captain Bergen and Abram Storms, the mate, was on the
Pacific Ocean, voyaging toward the South Seas.
The skipper was fond of telling the strange story, and the mate heard
it many times, as repeated to him one stormy night, around the roaring
fire of Captain Bergen's hearthstone in New England. It ran thus:
"You see, Abe, I was going down Washington Street, in Boston, one day,
when I came upon a drunken sailor, who was suffering a terrible
beating at the hands of a couple of land-sharks, that were were
evidently determined to rob him, if they had not already done so.
"It r'iled my blood to see such scandalous proceedings going on, and I
sailed in.
"Then I helped pick up Jack tar, and he was taken to the hospital,
where his wounds were found to be of a dangerous nature. His
assailants were so badly hurt that they went to the hospital, and when
they came out they were shifted to the penitentiary, where they're
likely to stay for a good many years to come.
"Having taken the part of Bill Grebbens, as he told me his name was, I
called at the hospital to see him every day, for I wasn't busy just
then. The poor fellow was very grateful for the service I had done
him, though sad to say I was too late.
"Bill had been on such a terrible spree that his system wasn't in
condition to resist disease, and before long it was plain he was going
to make a die of it. He was a plucky fellow, and when the doctor told
him he had to go, he didn't weaken.
"Just before he died, he took me by the hand, and told me he hadn't a
living relative in the world, nor one who had been such a friend to
him as I had proved to be. By that time my own eyes were getting
misty, and I begged him to say nothing about it.
"I told him I would see that he had a decent burial, and would attend
to anything he wanted me to do. He said there wasn't anything, for it
could make no difference to him what became of his body after his
death, and for his part he would as lief the doctors should have it.
"However, he took this paper from under his pillow and showed it to
me, and told me all about it. I thought at first his mind was
wandering, but I soon saw that his head was level, and he knew what he
was talking about."
The paper which Captain Bergen produced at this point of his narrative
was covered with some well-executed drawings, which, having been done
by the sailor himself, showed that he was a man of education.
"Those dots there represent the King George Islands of the South
Pacific, lying in about fifteen degrees south latitude and one hundred
and forty-three degrees west longitude. To the north here is Mendina
Archipelago, and here to the east are the Paumotu Islands, sometimes
known as the Pearl Islands. There are a good many of them, and away to
the northeast of the group is another island, which, although much the
larger on the map, is really a small coral island, with a lagoon, and
so unimportant that it has no name, and cannot be found on any map I
ever saw.
"You will observe the figure and directions marked on this paper,"
added Captain Bergen, who invariably became excited at this point in
his narration, "which, with his explanations, are so easily understood
that no one can go astray.
"Well, Bill Grebbens once belonged to a party of mutineers of a
British vessel, who found it growing so hot for them that they put in
to this island, scuttled and sunk their ship, and lived there two
years. It was uninhabited, and they led a lazy, vagabond life in that
charming climate till a strange sort of sickness broke out among them
and carried off eight, leaving only Grebbens and a single shipmate.
"These two spent several months longer in wandering about the island
looking for and yet dreading to see a sail, when one day they
discovered a bed of pearl-oysters, which they examined and found to be
of surpassing richness. The majority of the shells contained pearls,
many of them of great size, and the two men saw that an immense
fortune lay only a few fathoms under the surface.
"They instantly set to work with great eagerness; but it is seldom
that a man obtains wealth in this world by walking over a path of
roses.
"Within the first half-hour, a huge man-eating shark glided into the
clear water, and with one snap of his enormous jaws actually bit the
body of the other sailor in two. The horrified Grebbens managed to get
out just in time to save himself.
"He had enough of pearl-diving, and he shudderingly turned his back
upon the spot, and began looking out to sea again for a sail,
determined now to leave, no matter if he should be carried to England
and executed.
"He managed to set up the topmast of the wreck, and to catch the
attention of a whaler a few days later, and was taken off. Before
going, however, he made a careful drawing of the place, and by
studying other charts on the American whaler which took him away he
was able to locate the island with such correctness that he could
return to it at any time, his intention, of course, being to do so at
some period when he could go provided with means to prosecute his
search without such frightful risk.
"But Bill never saw the time, for he was too fond of liquor when
ashore. He met his death just as I told you, and he gave me this chart
or map of the locality, telling me that a fortune lay at that point
where my finger is resting to whosoever should go after it."
Such was the story of Captain Bergen, as he related it to his friend,
Abe Storms, to whom he proposed that they should fit out an expedition
to go to the South Seas in quest of the fortune that awaited them in
the shape of pearls.
Abe was slower and more deliberate, but he finally fell in with the
scheme, and the two, as we have already stated, became joint partners
in the grand enterprise.
Both were frugal men, and they now decided to invest all their funds
in the scheme, which promised to make or break them. Instead of
sailing from the port of Boston, they took an important cut "across
lots" by going by rail to San Francisco, thus saving the longest and
most dangerous portion of the voyage, which otherwise would be
necessary. In San Francisco, at a sale of bankrupt property, they
bought the schooner, which has already been described, and shipped
their crew.
The wonder was that two men possessing the shrewdness of Storms and
Bergen should have been so deceived respecting their men.
Hyde Brazzier was an American sailor, with blotched, bleared face,
with one eye gone, while over the sunken, sightless cavity he wore a
green patch, his face covered by a scraggly beard, and his single eye,
small and deep-set, added to the sinister expression of his
countenance.
He had the reputation of being a good seaman, and undoubtedly he was,
and being strong and vigorous, in the prime of life, he was considered
an especially valuable man to Captain Bergen, who paid him five
dollars more per month than he expected.
Since Captain Bergen had pursued a rather original course from the
beginning, he continued to do so. He engaged his men without any help
from the shipping-master, and had hardly reached an understanding
with the American when Alfredo Redvignez put in an appearance and
applied for a berth, saying that he had heard the best kinds of
accounts of the captain's seamanship and humanity--even in far-away
Boston.
Redvig--so called for convenience--said that he had been employed in
the East India trade, and was a sailor of nearly twenty years'
experience. It struck both Captain Bergen and Mate Storms that, as
they were going to the tropics, he was likely to prove a useful man,
and he was engaged.
The captain ventured to ask Brazzier's opinion of the other sailor,
but the American said he had never heard of him before--though he
liked the cut of his jib, and was glad he had been hired. But had any
one been watching the faces of the American and Spaniard, he would
have detected several suspicious signals which passed between them;
and this, added to the fact that, in a very short time, they became
intimately acquainted, as may be said, looked as if there had been
deception on that point.
The fact was, the two had arranged the matter beforehand, so as to go
together in this business--somewhat on the same principle that their
employers entered into partnership. They were both serving under
assumed names, and were obliged to take no little precaution to keep
their identity concealed, for they were "wanted" for serious crimes in
more than one port.
Redvig was a small, swarthy, muscular man, with coal-black, curling
hair, short, curly beard and mustache, black eyes, with an aquiline
nose, and both he and Brazzier had a fashion of wearing small gold
ear-rings. Their arms and breast were plentifully tattooed, so that
but for the great exception of their evil dispositions, they might
well have passed for good specimens of the proverbial Jack tar.
It was different with the huge colored man, Pomp Cooper, who had been
known about the wharves of San Francisco for a number of years. He was
jolly and good-natured, possessed of prodigious strength, and had been
on shipboard enough to acquire a fair knowledge of navigating a
coasting vessel.
While many believed he possessed the proverbial loyalty of his race,
and could not be induced to commit any grave crime, yet it must be
admitted that there were ugly rumors afloat concerning him. It was
asserted by more than one that he was a river and harbor pirate, and
belonged to one of the worst gangs that ever infested the harbor of
San Francisco.
While Captain Bergen was not ignorant of these rumors, yet he placed
no credence in them, and believed Pomp to be one of the most valuable
men he could obtain. Such in brief was the crew of the _Coral_, when
she sailed on her long voyage to the South Seas, in quest of
pearls--the location of which had been given by the dying sailor in
the Boston hospital.