CONCERNING DOUBLOON SPIT
Robert Wallace, the father of Evelyn, was not one of the forty-niners,
but he had come to California by way of the Isthmus not very many years
later. Always of an adventurous turn, it was on his fourteenth birthday
that he ran away from his home in Baltimore to become a stowaway on
board a south-bound vessel.
It was a day of privations, and the boy endured more than his share of
them without complaint. Somehow he got along, knocking about from one
point to another, now at the gold diggings, now on the San Francisco
wharfs, and again as a deck hand on the coasters that plied from port to
port.
When he was eighteen, but well grown for his age, he fell in with an old
salt named Nat Quinn. Quinn was an old man, close to seventy, a survival
of a type of sailor which even then had all but passed away.
The sea and the wind had given Quinn a face of wrinkled leather. It was
his custom to wear rings in his ears, to carry a murderous dirk, and to
wrap around his bald head a red bandanna after the fashion of the
buccaneers of old.
He was a surly old ruffian, quick to take offense, and absolutely
fearless. When the old fellow was in drink it was as much as one's life
was worth to cross his whim.
Nat Quinn was second mate of the _Porto Rico_ when young Wallace shipped
before the mast at San Francisco for a cruise to Lima. The crew were
probably rough specimens, but there can be no doubt that Quinn hazed
them mercilessly.
Soon the whole forecastle was simmering with talk about revenge. Off
Guayaquil one night three of the crew found him alone on the deck and
rushed him overboard. The old man was no swimmer. No doubt this would
have been the end of him if young Wallace, hearing his cry for help, had
not dived from the rail and kept him afloat until a boat reached them.
From that night Nat Quinn took a great fancy to the young man and often
hinted that he was going to make his fortune. He told of hidden
treasure, but never definitely; spoke of a great fortune to be had for
the lifting, and promised Wallace that he should go halves.
No doubt he trusted the boy, but the habit of secrecy had grown too
strong easily to be broken. Several times he approached the subject, but
usually sheered off before he had gone far. Of shrugs and winks he
offered plenty, enough to keep the youngster tantalized almost beyond
endurance. Nor was it possible to force his confidence, for he was of a
surly, taciturn disposition, given to brooding suspicions.
But at last the story came out. Quinn had been in his early days a
seaman on board the ship _Mary Ann_ of Bristol, which in the year 1817
was wrecked off the coast of Peru and cast upon the rocks. Most of the
crew were saved, including the captain, one Thomas Rogers, the first
mate, "Bully" Evans, and the boatswain, Pablo Lobardi, a quarrelsome
fellow with whom Quinn had had a difficulty.
The rescued seamen were treated with the greatest kindness by the
simple-hearted natives. To Cerro Blanco, the nearest town, they were
taken and given work. Most of them found employment in the rich mines of
the neighborhood, pending the arrival of some ship to take them back to
Europe.
Lobardi was the only one of the crew who could talk Spanish, so that in
his capacity of interpreter he acquired much influence with the men. It
was he that hatched the vile plot to rob the mines, loot the rich
churches and the banks of Cerro Blanco, and make their escape on the
ship which put in twice a year to carry the gold to Lima.
It looked a desperate enough adventure, this plan to seize an armed
transport and escape with a great treasure, but these ruffians were the
very men to carry through such an attempt. In its apparent hopelessness
lay one prime factor of success, for none could expect a score of
unarmed men to try so forlorn a hope. The transport carried twice as
many soldiers, and these could call upon the town for aid in case of
need.
Everything went as well for the rascally buccaneers as they could
desire. As the treasure wagons from the mines filed through a narrow
gorge the sailors fell upon them. By means of three stolen rifles they
drove away the guard. In their wild flight for safety the men who
composed this body flung away their weapons in panic.
Bully Evans, captain in fact though not in name, now had eleven rifles
and three pistols to distribute among his men. Leaving an escort with
the gold, he pushed to Cerro Blanco with the main body of robbers. At
the outskirts of the town he again divided his forces. One party
hastened to the banks and another looted the cathedral. Within an hour
the town had been stripped clean of its gold and jewels and the
scoundrels had again joined forces at the wharves. Only the need of
absolute silence saved the town from a carnival of fire and murder.
It was by this time in the small hours of a dark, moonless night. The
pirates loaded the treasure into boats and pulled quietly for the _Santa
Theresa_, a transport which lay like a black hulk in the harbor.
The first boat was challenged by a sentinel on board, but Lobardi gave
the countersign which they had forced from the leader of the treasure
convoy.
"_Muy bien_," answered the sentry, and he at once moved away to call the
captain of the marines.
As that officer came sleepily to the deck a half dozen figures swarmed
over the side of the ship. He gave a cry, the last he ever uttered. A
knife hurtling through the dark was buried to the hilt in his throat.
Simultaneously one of the men on guard let out his death shriek and the
other fled down the hatchway to the quarters of the men.
The first rush of the troopers to the deck was met by a volley that
mowed them down. Before they could recover, the pirates were upon them
with cutlases. Taken by surprise, hemmed in by the narrow hatchway, the
soldiers made a poor defense. Some were pursued and cut down, others
escaped by swimming to the wharves. Those who surrendered were flung
into a boat and ordered ashore.
Captain Rogers worked the brig out of the harbor and set her nose to the
north. There was need of haste, for the ship's consort was expected in a
day or two. That there would be a pursuit nobody doubted.
Now occurred a state of affairs to be accounted the most strange were it
not the most natural in the world. While the plot had been fomenting,
and during its execution, these scurvy fellows had been of one mind,
amenable to discipline, and entirely loyal to each other.
The thing had been in the wind a month, yet not one of them had breathed
a word in betrayal. But no sooner had they won success than dissensions
broke out. They were jealous of their officers, suspicious of each
other.
Men whispered together in corners, and others scowled at them in
distrust. They grew unruly, were soon ripe for mutiny.
To make matters worse, the wines and liquors aboard were made too free.
It was not long before the cutthroats were in a debauch that threatened
to last as long as the rum. Fights grew frequent. Within a week one man
was buried and another lay in his bunk cut to ribbons.
At this juncture Rogers, Evans, and Lobardi put their heads together and
quietly dumped overboard the liquor supply. Captain Rogers was the
ablest seaman among the officers, and he it was that worked the brig.
But Bully Evans was the real leader of the pirates. He was a big man, of
tremendous vitality and strength, and he ruled like a czar, hazing his
men into submission by sheer brutality.
One specimen of his methods must serve to illustrate a week of battle,
every hour filled with disorder. The brig _Truxillo_, consort of the
_Santa Theresa_, had appeared in the offing one morning and hung on in
chase with all sail set. All day and night the two ships raced, the one
to escape, the other to capture the pirates.
Next morning there came up a heavy fog. Orders were given to about ship.
Nothing could have amazed the crew more, and mutiny was instantly in the
air. The malcontents whispered together and sent forward a committee of
three to voice their refusal to comply with the order.
Before a dozen words had been spoken Evans stepped forward and flung the
spokesman from the quarterdeck. While the other two hesitated he was
upon them, had cracked their heads together, and hammered them down the
steps to the waist.
From his belt he whipped two pistols and leveled them at the grumblers.
"Avast, you lubbers!" he bellowed. "By the powers, I'll learn you to
play horse with Bully Evans! Pipe up your complaint or foot it, you
flabby seacocks what call yourselves gentlemen of fortune! Stow my quid,
but I'll send some of you to feed the fishes if you try to make the
f'c'sle rule the quarterdeck. Come, pipe up!"
They did not say much of what was in their minds, for he took the words
out of their mouths, berating them for meddlesome fools and explaining
how their sole chance of escaping was to slip past the _Truxillo_ in the
fog and shake off the pursuit. All this he roared with the foulest of
accompanying oaths, treating the crew like dogs so effectively that they
turned tail and gave up without a blow.
On the morning of the third day after this the _Santa Theresa_ poked her
nose into San Miguel Gulf on the southern coast of Panama. The captain
took her across the gulf into Darien Harbor, then followed the southern
branch practically to the head of the bay, at which point he anchored.
Tired of being confined aboard the ship, the crew were eager to get
ashore. This suited the plans of Evans. As soon as the long boat had
gone with the shore party he packed the treasure in boxes and lowered
them into a boat. Late in the afternoon the tired sailors returned to
the ship.
Evans ordered the boatswain to pipe all hands on deck. To the assembled
crew he made a speech, pointing out the need of getting the treasure to
some safer place than aboard a ship which might any day fall into the
hands of the enemy. He intended, he said, to take three men with him and
bury the chests on the sand spit within sight of them all.
But at this proposal the men broke into flat rebellion. Not one of them
was willing to trust the gold out of his reach. Things in fact had come
to such a pass that, though there was plenty for all, each was plotting
how he might increase his share by robbing his neighbor.
Evans had made his preparations. The officers, Lobardi, Quinn, and two
other sailors who sided with the chief villains were grouped together,
all of them heavily armed. In the struggle that followed the victory
lay with the organized party. The mutineers were defeated and disarmed.
Evans selected Quinn, Lobardi, and a sailor named Wall to go with him
ashore to bury the gold. Those on board watched the boat pull away with
the gold that had cost so many lives. To the fury and amazement of all
of them the boat rounded a point of land and disappeared from sight.
Evans had broken his agreement to bury the treasure in the sight of all.
Even Captain Rogers joined in the imprecations of the men. He ordered
the long boat lowered for a pursuit, but hardly had this started when a
shot plumped into the water in front of it.
Unobserved in the excitement, the _Truxillo_ had slipped into the bay.
Its second shot fell short, its third wide, but the fourth caught the
boat amidship and crumpled it as the tap of a spoon does an empty
eggshell. Of the eight men aboard two were killed outright and the rest
thrown into the sea. One of them--a man named Bucks, as we were to learn
in a most surprising way--clung to the wreckage and succeeded in
reaching shore. The rest were drowned or fell a prey to sharks.
The long boat disposed of, the _Truxillo_ turned her guns upon the
_Santa Theresa_. Those left on board made a desperate defense, but the
captain, seeing that escape was impossible, chose to blow up the ship
rather than be hanged as a pirate from the yardarm.
Meanwhile, the boat with the treasure, which had rounded the point
before the _Truxillo_ had appeared, had been beached on the spit and the
chests dragged ashore. Evans was burying the boxes when the first shot
of the _Truxillo_ fell upon his ears. Naturally he concluded that it was
from the _Santa Theresa_ as a warning of what he might expect.
Bully Evans showed his yellow teeth in a grin.
"Compliments of the old man," he said, no whit disturbed at his double
treachery.
But at the sound of the final explosion the desperadoes looked at each
other.
They ran to the nearest hill and saw the destruction of their
companions.
The Portuguese boatswain was the first to recover.
"There ees now fewer to share," he said with a shrug of his shoulders.
Evans looked at Quinn and gave a signal. The double murder was done with
knives. Where there had been four, now only two remained.
Evans and Quinn finished burying the treasure and removed all trace of
their work. A map was drawn by Quinn, showing the exact location of the
cache. The murderers slipped back to their boat and, under cover of
darkness, crept up the harbor till they came to the mouth of a large
river. Up this they pulled and disappeared into the interior. Neither of
them was aware that Bucks had seen the treacherous killing and the
disposal of the treasure.
Six weeks later a living skeleton crawled out of the fever-laden swamps
of Panama and staggered down to a little village on the Gulf of Uraba.
The man was Nat Quinn. He had followed the Rio Tuyra, zigzagged across
the Isthmus, and reached the northern coast.
Somewhere in the dark tangle of forest behind him, where daylight never
penetrates the thick tropical growth, lay the body of Bully Evans. It
was lying face down in the underbrush, a little round hole in the back
of the head. Quinn's treachery had anticipated that of the mate.
As the survivor lurched down to the settlement his voice rose in a high
cackle of delirious song. These were the words of his chant:
It's bully boys, ho! and a deck splashed red--
The devil is paid, quo' he, quo' he,
A knife in the back and a mate swift sped!
Heave yo ho! and away with me.