Those of my readers who happen to be well acquainted with Weymouth, will
also be assuredly acquainted with a certain lane, known as Buxton's
Lane, branching off to the right from the high-road at Rodwell, and
connecting that suburb with the picturesque little village of Wyke. I
make this assertion with the most perfect confidence, because Buxton's
Lane happens to afford one of the most charming walks in that charming
neighbourhood; and no one can well be a sojourner for any length of time
in Weymouth without discovering this fact for him or herself, either
through inquiry or by means of personal exploration.
And of those who have enjoyed a saunter through this lane, some there
will doubtless be who can remember a substantial stone-built house,
standing back a distance of about a hundred yards or so from the
roadway, and environed by a quaint old-fashioned garden, the entire
demesne being situate on the crest of the rise just before Wyke is
reached, and commanding an unparalleled view of the roadstead of
Portland, with the open channel as far as Saint Alban's Head to the
left, while on the right the West Bay (notorious for its shipwrecks)
stretches from the Bill of Portland, far away westward, into the misty
distance toward Lyme, and Beer, and Seaton; ay, and even beyond that,
down to Berry Head, past Torquay, the headland itself having been
distinctly seen from Wyke Nap on a clear day, so it is said, though I
cannot remember that I ever saw it myself from that standpoint.
The house to which I refer is (or was, for I believe it no longer
exists) known as "The Spaniards," and was built by my ancestor, Hubert
Saint Leger, with a portion of the proceeds of the Spanish prize that--
having so harried and worried her that she at length became separated
from the main body of the Great Armada--he drove into Weymouth Bay, and
there, under the eyes of his admiring fellow-townsmen, fought her in his
good ship _Golden Rose_, until she was fain to strike her colours and
surrender to a craft of considerably less than half her size.
"The Spaniards" had continued in possession of the Saint Leger family
from the time of its building down to the date of my story; and under
its roof I was born. And to its roof I had returned from an Australian
voyage, a day or two previous to the events about to be related, to find
my dear mother in the direst of trouble. My father, like all the rest
of the male Saint Legers, for as many generations as we could trace
back, had been a seaman, and had died abroad, leaving my mother such a
moderate provision as would enable her, with care, to end her days in
peace and comfort beneath the old roof-tree. It was a lonely life for
her, poor soul! for I was her only child, and--being a Saint Leger--took
naturally to the sea as a profession. That I should do so was indeed so
completely a foregone conclusion, that I was especially educated for it
at Greenwich; upon leaving which, I had been bound apprentice to my
father. And under him I had faithfully served my time, and had risen to
the position of second mate when death claimed him, and he passed away
in my arms, commending my mother to my tenderest care with his last
breath.
Since that terrible time I had made several voyages to our eastern
possessions, and now, when my story opens, was chief mate of a fine
clipper-ship, with some hopes of promotion to the rank of "captain" when
a suitable vacancy should occur.
The voyage which I had just concluded had been a singularly fortunate
one for me, for on our homeward passage, when a short distance to the
eastward of the Cape, we had fallen in with a derelict, homeward-bound
from the Moluccas and Philippines, with a cargo of almost fabulous value
on board; and, having taken possession of her, I had been placed in
command, with a crew of four hands, with instructions to take her into
Table Bay, there to raise my crew to the full complement, and, having
done so, to afterwards navigate her to her destination. This I had
successfully accomplished, arriving home only nine days after my own
ship. A claim for salvage had been duly made, and I calculated that
when the settling day arrived, my own share would fall very little short
of three thousand pounds, if, indeed, it did not fully reach that
figure.
I have stated that when, upon the termination of an Australian voyage
and the completion of my duties as chief mate, I returned to my
ancestral home for the purpose of spending a brief holiday with my
mother prior to my departure upon yet another journey to the antipodes,
I had found her in dire trouble. This trouble was the natural--and I
may say inevitable--result of my father's mistaken idea that he was as
good a man of business as he was a seaman. Acting under this
impression, he had relied entirely upon his own unaided judgment in the
investment of his savings; and, anxious only to secure as generous a
provision as possible for my mother, had been tempted to put his
hard-earned money into certain projects that, offering, in their
inception, a too alluring promise of continuous prosperity and generous
dividends, had failed to withstand the test of time and the altered
conditions of trade; with the result that, after paying handsome
percentages for a more or less lengthened period, they had suddenly
collapsed like a pricked balloon, leaving my poor mother penniless. Of
course everything had been done that was possible to save something,
though it might be ever so little, from the wreck; but there had been
nothing to save; every penny was gone; and when I reached home I found
the poor soul literally at her wits' end to maintain a supply of the
ordinary necessaries of life.
My appearance upon the scene of course necessitated the raking up of the
whole miserable story once more; but when I had been told everything, I
saw at once that nothing more could be done, and that my poor mother
would simply have to put up with the loss as best she might.
Then arose the question of what was best to be done under our altered
circumstances. The first conclusion at which we arrived was the obvious
one that it would be quite impossible for my mother to maintain such an
establishment as "The Spaniards" upon my income of ten pounds per month
as chief mate; and she therefore suggested that we should let it upon a
lease, if a suitable tenant could be found, and that she should retire,
with her altered fortunes, into the obscurity of some small cottage. To
this, however, I would in no wise consent; and it was while we were
discussing the matter in all its bearings, and casting about for an
acceptable alternative, that my mother let fall a remark, which, little
as we suspected it at the moment, proved to be the key-note of the
present story.
"Ah, my son," she ejaculated, with a hopeless sigh, "if we could but
find the lost clue to Richard Saint Leger's buried treasure, all might
yet be well with us!"
"Ah!" I responded, with a still more hopeless sigh, "if only we could!
But I suppose there is about as much chance of that as there is of my
becoming Lord High Admiral of Great Britain. The clue must be
irretrievably lost, or it would have been discovered long ere now. I
suppose every Saint Leger, from my great-great-great-grandfather Hugh,
downwards, has taken his turn at hunting for that miserable lost clue;
and the fact that they all failed to find it is conclusive evidence to
me that it is no longer in existence."
"Well, I really don't know, my boy; I am not prepared to say so much as
that," answered my mother. "Your dear father took the same view of the
matter that you do, and never, to my knowledge, devoted a single hour to
the search. And I have heard him say that it was the same with your
grandfather. And if they never searched for the lost clue, how can we
know or suppose that _any one_ has searched for it since Hugh Saint
Leger abandoned the quest? Yet there never appears to have been the
slightest shadow of doubt in the minds of any of your ancestors, that
when Richard Saint Leger died in the arms of his son Hugh, he held the
clue to the secret; indeed, he died in the act of endeavouring to
communicate it."
"So I have always understood," answered I, with languidly reviving
interest. "But it is so long since I last heard the story--not since I
was a little shaver in petticoats--that I have practically forgotten the
details. I should like to hear it again, if it is not troubling you too
much."
"It is no trouble at all, my dear boy, for it can be told in very few
words. Besides, you _ought_ to know it," answered my mother. "You are
aware, of course, that the Saint Legers have been a race of daring and
adventurous seamen, as far back as our family records go; and Richard
Saint Leger, who was born in 1689, was perhaps the most daring and
adventurous of them all. He was a contemporary of the great Captain
(afterwards Lord) Anson; and it was upon his return from a voyage to the
West Indies that he first became aware of the rumours, which reached
England from time to time, of the fabulous value of the galleon which
sailed annually from Acapulco to Manilla laden with the treasure of
Peru. These rumours, which were no doubt greatly exaggerated, were well
calculated to excite the imagination and stimulate the enterprise of the
bold and restless spirits of that period; so much so, indeed, that when
the English, in 1739, declared war against Spain, the capture of one of
these ships became to the English adventurer what the discovery of the
fabled El Dorado had been to his predecessor of Elizabethan times. At
length--in the year 1742, I think it was--it became whispered about
among those restless spirits that a galleon had actually been captured,
and that the captors had returned to England literally laden with
wealth. Richard Saint Leger was one of the first to hear the news; and
it so fired his imagination--and probably his cupidity--that he never
rested until he had traced the rumour to its source, and found it to be
true. He then sought out the leader of the fortunate expedition, and
having pledged himself to the strictest secrecy, obtained the fullest
particulars relating to the adventure. This done, his next step was to
organise a company of adventurers, with himself as their head and
leader, to sail in search of the next year's galleon. This was in the
year 1742. The expedition was a failure, so far as the capture of the
galleon was concerned, for she fell into the hands of Commodore Anson.
In other respects, however, the voyage proved fairly profitable; for
though they missed the great treasure ship, they fell in with and
captured another Spanish vessel which had on board sufficient specie to
well recompense the captors for the time and trouble devoted to the
adventure. And now I come to the part of the story which relates to
what has always been spoken of in the family as Richard Saint Leger's
buried treasure. It appears that on board the captured Spanish ship of
which I have just spoken, certain English prisoners were found, the
survivors of the crew of an English ship that had fought with and been
destroyed by the Spanish ship only a few days prior to her own capture.
These men were of course at once removed to Richard Saint Leger's own
ship, where they received every care, and their hurts--for it is said
that every man of them was more or less severely wounded--treated with
such skill as happened to be available, with the result that a few of
them recovered. Many, however, were so sorely hurt that they succumbed
to their injuries, the English captain being among this number. He
survived, however, long enough to tell Richard Saint Leger that he had
captured the galleon of the previous year, and had determined upon
capturing the next also. With this object in view, and not caring to
subject their booty to the manifold risks attendant upon a cruise of an
entire year, they had sought out a secluded spot, and had there
carefully concealed the treasure by burying it in the earth. Now,
however, the poor man was dying, and could never hope to enjoy his share
of the spoil, or even insure its possession to his relatives. He
therefore made a compact with Richard Saint Leger, confiding to him the
secret of the hiding-place, upon the condition that, upon the recovery
of the treasure, one half of it was to be handed over in certain
proportions to the survivors of the crew who had captured it, or,
failing them, to their heirs; Richard Saint Leger to take the other
half.
"Now, whether it was that Richard Saint Leger was of a secretive
disposition, or whether he had some other motive for keeping the matter
a secret, I know not; but certain it is that he never made the slightest
reference to the matter--even to his son Hugh, who was sailing with
him--until some considerable time afterwards. The occasion which led to
his taking Hugh into his confidence was the meeting with another enemy,
which they promptly proceeded to engage; and it may have been either as
a measure of prudence in view of the impending conflict, or perhaps some
premonition of his approaching end that led him to adopt the precaution
of imparting the secret to a second person. He had deferred the matter
too long, however; and he had only advanced far enough in his narrative
to communicate the particulars I have just given, when the two ships
became so hotly engaged that the father and son were obliged to separate
in the prosecution of their duties, and the conclusion of the story had
to be deferred until a more convenient season. That season never
arrived, for Richard Saint Leger was struck down, severely wounded,
early in the fight, and the command of the ship then devolved upon Hugh.
Moreover, not only was there a very great disparity of force in favour
of the Spaniards, but, contrary to usual experience, they fought with
the utmost valour and determination, so that for some time after the
ships had become engaged at close quarters the struggle was simply one
for bare life on the part of the English, during which Hugh Saint Leger
had no leisure to think of treasure or of anything else, save how to
save his comrades and himself from the horrors of capture by their cruel
enemies.
"Meanwhile, the consciousness gradually forced itself upon Richard Saint
Leger that he was wounded unto death, and that time would soon be for
him no more. Realising now, no doubt, the grave mistake he had
committed in keeping so important a secret as that of the hiding-place
of the treasure locked within his own breast, he despatched a messenger
to Hugh, enjoining the latter to hasten to the side of his dying father
forthwith, at all risks. The messenger, however, was shot dead ere he
could reach Hugh Saint Leger's side, and the urgent message remained
undelivered. At length the stubborn courage of the English prevailed,
and, despite their vast superiority in numbers, the Spaniards, who had
boarded, were first driven back to their own deck and then below, when,
further resistance being useless, they flung down their arms and
surrendered.
"Hugh now, after giving a few hasty orders as to the disposal of the
prisoners, found time to think of his father, whom he remembered seeing
in the act of being borne below, wounded, in the early part of the
fight. He accordingly hurried away in search of him, finding him in his
own cabin, supported in the arms of one of the seamen, and literally at
his last breath. It was with difficulty that Hugh succeeded in
rendering his father conscious of his presence; and when this was at
length accomplished the sufferer only rallied sufficiently to gasp
painfully the words, `The treasure--buried--island--full particulars--
concealed in my--' when a torrent of blood gushed from his mouth and
nostrils, and, with a last convulsive struggle, Richard Saint Leger sank
back upon his pallet, dead.
"He was buried at sea, that same night, along with the others who had
fallen in the fight; and some days afterwards, when Hugh Saint Leger had
conquered his grief sufficiently to give his attention to other matters,
he set himself to the task of seeking for the particulars relating to
the buried treasure. But though he patiently examined every document
and scrap of paper contained in his father's desk, and otherwise
searched most carefully and industriously in every conceivable
hiding-place he could think of, the quest was unavailing, and _the
particulars have never been found, to this day_!"
"It is very curious," I remarked, when my mother had brought her
narrative to a conclusion--"very curious, and very interesting. But
what you have related only strengthens my previous conviction, that the
document or documents no longer exist. I have very little doubt that,
if the truth could only be arrived at, it would be found that Richard
Saint Leger kept the papers concealed somewhere about his clothing, and
that they were buried with him."
"No; that was certainly not the case," rejoined my mother; "for it is
distinctly stated that--probably to obviate any such possibility--Hugh
Saint Leger carefully preserved every article of clothing which his
father wore when he died; and the things exist to this day, carefully
preserved, upstairs, together with every other article belonging to
Richard Saint Leger which happened to be on board the ship at that
time."
"And have those relics never been examined since my ancestor Hugh
abandoned the quest as hopeless?" I inquired.
"They may have been; I cannot say," answered my mother. "But I do not
believe that your dear father--or your grandfather either, for that
matter--ever thought it worth while to subject them to a thoroughly
exhaustive scrutiny. Your father, I know, always felt convinced, as you
do, that the documents had been either irretrievably lost, or
destroyed."
"Then if that be so," I exclaimed, "they shall have another thorough
overhaul from clew to earring before I am a day older. If, as you say,
every scrap of property belonging to Richard Saint Leger was carefully
collected and removed from the ship when she came home, and still
exists, stored away upstairs, why, the papers _must_ be there too; and
if they are I will find them, let them be hidden ever so carefully.
Whereabouts do you say these things are, mother?"
"In the west attic, where they have always been kept," answered my
mother. "Wait a few minutes, my dear boy, until I have found the keys
of the boxes, and we will make the search together."