VANDERDECKEN EXHIBITS SOME TREASURE.
When Vogelaar left the cabin to relieve Arents on deck, Vanderdecken
exhibited a disposition to talk. He gently took Imogene's chin in his
hand and chided her very tenderly, yet without the slightest quality
of what we should call pleasantness in his manner. For this would have
brought him to some show of good-humour, whereas never during the time
I was thrown with him did I see the least light of merriment on his
face; I say, he chided her, but very gently, for crying at the delay
caused by the storm, and exclaimed, motioning to me, "Here is a seaman.
He will tell you that this is a stormy part of the ocean, and that at
this season of the year we must look for gales from the north-west;
but he will also know that these tempests are short-lived and that a
breeze from the east, north or south, must carry us round the Cape as
fairly as our helm controls us."
"Oh! that is so indeed, Miss Dudley," said I, quickly, and darting
a meaning glance at her; and wishing to change the subject I went
on: "Mynheer, when I was in your cabin last night shifting myself, I
noticed a cross-staff. 'Twould be of no use to you to-day, the sun
being blotted out. Failing an observation, upon what method do you rely
for knowing your position?"
"What else but the log?" he exclaimed. "I compute entirely by
dead-reckoning. The staff hath often set me wide of the mark. The log
fairly gives me my place on the sea card, and then there is the lead."
I bowed by way of thanking him, for in this direction I gathered by his
rejoinder as much as he could have acquainted me with in an hour's
discourse, besides, the earnest regard of the pair of sweet light
eyes opposite reminded me that I must be very wary in showing myself
inquisitive.
"You have a sharp sight, sir," said Vanderdecken, but speaking without
any fierceness, "to see that fore-staff in my cabin by the faint light
there was. What else did you observe?"
I told him honestly, for I could imagine no challenge to his wrath in
answering, that I had seen a speaking-trumpet, sand-glass, pictures,
and the like. But as though Imogene knew him better and desired to
shield me, she instantly said, "Oh, captain, will not you show Mr.
Fenton the pictures of your wife and children? They will charm him, I
know."
On this he called Prins to bring the pictures. If ever I had doubted
this ship was the veritable Flying Dutchman the portraits would have
settled my misgivings once and for all. The material on which they
were painted was cracked in places, and the darkness of age lay very
gloomy and thick upon them. They were all of a size, about ten inches
long and six inches broad. He put his wife before me first and watched
me with his fierce eyes whilst I pored upon the painting. The picture
was that of a portly lady in a black close-fitting cap, the hair
yellow, the bosoms very large, a square-shouldered heavy woman of the
true Dutch mould, round-faced, not uncomely, and perhaps of five and
forty years of age. How she was dressed I could not tell, but the arms
were bare from the elbows, and they and the hands were, methought, very
delicately painted and exquisitely life-like. The others were those of
girls of different ages. Which of them Captain Vanderdecken imagined
Miss Dudley to resemble I could not conceive; there was nothing in
these darksome likenesses, albeit they represented maidenhood and
infancy, to suggest a resemblance to the English beauty of the
fragile, large-eyed, gold-crowned face of Imogene Dudley.
She that was named Geertruida was of a style that came close to good
looks, eyes merry, dainty mouth, but cheeks too fat. Here was little
Margaretha, for whom the piping swain had been purchased, peering at me
with a half-shy, half-wondering look out of the dusky background.
As I returned them one by one, the captain took them from me, lingering
long upon each and making such comments as "'Tis Johanna to the life!"
meaning his wife. "What art is more wonderful than this of portrait
painting? No age is likely to beat our time, and no nation the Dutch.
How alive is the eye here! Methinks if I spoke angrily to her she
would weep!" or "You will find this girl," meaning Geertruida, "a true
sister, Imogene, homely, honest and innocent, so fond of fun but yet so
dutiful, that there is no woman in all Holland who would make a better
wife," or "Ah! little one, thy father will be with thee ere long,"
stopping to kiss the painting of his daughter Margaretha.
Prins stood by to receive the pictures, but Vanderdecken hung over
this one for some minutes, falling motionless, insomuch that I
thought another one of his strange fits or trances had seized him;
and perfectly still for those moments were Miss Dudley and I, often
glancing at each other as though both of us alike felt the prodigious
significance imported into this spectacle of a father's love, by the
bellowing of the wind, and the long, yearning, sickening, broadside
rushes of the ship, ruthlessly hurled back by the surge and storm into
the deeper solitude of those waters whose confines she was never to
pass.
Now Arents left the table, never having given us, nor our talk, nor the
pictures, the smallest imaginable heed. His going brought Vanderdecken
back to life, so to speak; and he handed the picture of his child to
Prins. I looked at him, expecting, though God knows why, to see a tear.
But whatever sensibility Heaven had permitted this man to retain did
not appear in his face. Had it been cast in brass it could not have
been harder and more impenetrable. His eyes were full of their former
passionate scornful life and light. They made me think, supposing him
to show now as he would have appeared at the time of his death, that he
was one who would have met his end full of impatience, imperious rage,
and savage decrial of the holy ordinances of Nature.
But oh, the sadness, the sadness of the spectacle I had contemplated!
This tender perusal by a husband and father of the beloved lineaments
of those whom he deemed living, ay! and still looking as they looked at
him from the canvas, but who had been dead so many years that time had
perhaps erased the name from the stone that marked the burial-place
of the youngest of them all--the little Margaretha! And how much
longer would these portraits last, I asked myself? 'Twas certain by
the evidences of decay in them that they had not the vitality of the
ship and of those who sailed her. What then? The years would blot them
out. Yet mercy he would surely deserve who loved his wife and children
as this man did. And I still sometimes fondly hope that memory may be
permitted to serve him in lieu of his eyes, so that in gazing upon
the time-blackened canvas he may as truly see with intellectual sight
the faces of his dear ones as though they stood out bright, fresh and
life-like, as at the hour in which they were painted.
All the time I looked at these pictures I would notice Miss Dudley
watching me, quickly averting her gaze when mine met hers. I put down
this scrutiny to her wish to gather my character, though I need not
at this distance expect to be reproached for my vanity if I say that
I thought that was not her only reason for following me with her eyes.
I pray you consider the life she had led since the destruction of
her father's ship and the loss of her parents; how that she was now
grown to be a woman; and how that I was not only a young, but bright,
fair, merry-eyed sailor, her own countryman, of the calling she loved
for her father's sake, and the sweeter to her sight for breaking in
upon her mournful life and offering to snatch her from the frightful
companionship of the Death Ship's crew.
But more of this anon.
Whilst Prins was in the captain's cabin hanging up the pictures, she
exclaimed, "It is a dull and dreary day. How are we to kill the time?"
As she spoke the clock struck, and the parrot, instead of using her
customary expression, laughed out loudly, "Ha! ha! ha!"
"That bird," said I, "seems to know what we are talking about. It is a
pretty notion of hers to laugh at your inquiry when she sees how vainly
old Death in the clock yonder stabs at time."
This I spoke in English.
"What do you say, mynheer?" demanded Vanderdecken.
"Oh, captain!" exclaimed Miss Imogene, as if she was carrying on the
sense of my remarks, "could not we prettily dispatch an hour by looking
at some of the treasure you have below?" She laid her little white hand
on his, and pleaded with her eyes. "It will be a treat to Mr. Fenton to
see the fine things you have, and I am still childish enough to love
the sparkle of precious stones."
He turned to me and said, "Sir, I have no objection, but our countries
are at war, and in case of your being transshipped I have to ask you,
on your honour as a gentleman and a seaman, not to give information of
the objects the lady desires me to show you."
I never before witnessed a finer dignity in any man's air than that
which ennobled him as he spoke. I gave him my assurance, feeling
that I cut but a mean figure in my manner of answering after his own
majestic and haughty aspect and the rich and thrilling tones in which
he had delivered himself, nor will I pretend that I was not moved at
the vanity and idleness of the obligation of silence he imposed upon
me, for whatever treasure he had would be as safe in his ship as on
the sandy bed of the sea, even though on my escaping I should go and
apprise all the admirals in the world of its existence.
He said no more but, calling to Prins, ordered him to clear the table,
bring pipes and tobacco, and then take some seamen with him into--as I
understood--the half-deck and bring up two chests of treasure, those
which were lashed on the starboard side, close against the bulkhead.
The cloth was removed, we lighted our pipes, and after we had waited
some little while, Prins, with several sailors, appeared, bearing among
them two stout, apparently very heavy, chests, which they set down upon
the cabin floor, taking care to secure them by lashings and seizings to
the stanchions, so that they should not slip with the ship's lurches.
The sailors interested me so much that, whilst they were with us,
I looked only at them. It was not that there was anything in their
faces, if I except the dreadful pallor, or in their attire, to fix my
attention; it was that they were a part of the crew of this accurst
ship, participators in the doom that Vanderdecken had brought upon her,
members of a ghostly band the like of which it might never be permitted
to mortal man to behold again. One had very deep-sunk eyes, which
shone in their dark hollows with much of the fire that gave a power of
terrifying to those of the captain. Another had a long, grizzly beard,
over which his nose curved in a hook, his little eyes lay close against
the top of his nose, and his hair, that was wet with spray or rain,
lay like new-gathered seaweed down to pretty near his shoulder-blades.
This man's name, I afterwards heard, was Tjaart Van der Valdt, whilst
he that had the glowing eyes was called Christopher Roostoff.
They all went about in the soulless, mechanical way I was now used
to, and, when they had set down the chests, Prins dismissed them with
an injunction to stand by ready to take them below again. The cases
were about three feet high, and ranging about five feet long; they
were heavily girt with iron bands, and padlocked with massive staples.
Prins opened them and flung back the lids, and then, to be sure, I
looked down upon treasures the like of which in quality, I'll not
say quantity, in one single ship, the holds of the Acapulco galleons
could alone rival, or the caves in which the old buccaneers hid their
booty. Miss Dudley, seeing me rise, left her seat, and came to my side.
Vanderdecken stepped round, and leaned against the table, his arms
folded, and his body moving only with the rolling of the ship.
I should speedily grow tedious were I to be minute in my description
of what I saw, yet I must venture a short way in this direction. In
one box there were fitted four trays, each tray divided into several
compartments, and every compartment was filled with precious stones,
set in rings, bracelets, bangles and the like, and with golden
ornaments, such as birds for the hair, brooches, necklets, chains for
wearing about the waist or neck, and other such things of prodigious
value and beauty of device. I asked leave to examine some of these
objects, and on picking them up noticed that some were of a much more
antique character than others, insomuch that I said to Miss Imogene in
English, "I suspect that much of these splendours our friend will have
collected at different periods."
She answered in our tongue, "He can tell you what he purchased at
Batavia, or what was consigned to him for delivery at Amsterdam, but
his memory after that is a blank, and the last wreck he can recall, in
which he found several quintals of silver and unminted gold, is the
Fryheid that he met--I cannot tell where--in a sinking condition."
"There is more treasure aboard than this! cried I.
"Much more!" she replied. Then turning to Vanderdecken, who had fixed
his eyes on me without moving his head, she said, "I am telling Mr.
Fenton that these chests represent but a handful of the treasure in
this ship."
"I am dazzled by what I see, mynheer, said I, speaking whilst Prins
raised the trays disclosing many hundreds of guineas' worth of
ornaments and stones. "Had I but the value of one of these trays alone
this should be my last voyage."
"Ay," said he, "there is much that is beautiful here. Much that will
yield good sums. But a large number of the articles in that chest
belong to a merchant; there are likewise consignments, and my own share
is but a speculation."
The other chest had but one tray, in which lay many golden crucifixes
of different sizes, goblets, flagons, candlesticks, all gold, whilst
beneath were numbers of a kind of small bricks or bars of pewter, which
Miss Imogene told me were gold that had been originally disguised in
this way as a blind to the pirates. In addition were several great
canvas bags, into which Prins, moving always as an automaton, thrust
his hand, bringing forth different sorts of coins, such as rix-dollars,
ducatoons, ducats, Batavian rupees, Spanish dollars, and even
schillings, worth no more than six stivers apiece.
There is a pleasure in looking at bright and sparkling objects, at the
beauty of gold worked into strange or fantastic shapes, at jewels and
stones in their multitude, gleaming out in twenty colours at once.
And had I been a picaroon or a woman, I could not have surveyed this
collection with sharper delight, though I hope you will not suppose
that I felt the buccaneer's thirst for the things. But when my glance
went to Vanderdecken, all the shining seemed to die out, and the
richest of the jewels to lose its glory.
Not that this was actually so; it was the reflection excited in me that
darkened the radiance of that treasure. There stood the great, majestic
captain, with his arms folded over his beard, and his eyes fixed on
the chest, frightfully symbolising--more wildly and sternly than could
the corpse of a miser lying in a coffin, into which had been poured
all the ducats he had hoarded in his life--the worthlessness of that
wealth of which the desire makes devils of men in secret oppressions
and bitter, hidden cruelties. Had Vanderdecken been veritably
dead--recumbent--a corpse--the sight of him alongside those cases of
costly things would not haply have affected me; 'twas the simulation
of life in him, his unhallowed and monstrous vitality, that rendered
his typification of the uselessness after death of that for which
many among us sell our hearts, nay, diligently toil to extinguish the
last spark of the Heavenly fire which the Creator sends us into this
life radiant with; as who, looking at a babe's face, but sees?--that
rendered, I say, his typification terrible. You could see he took no
joy whatever in the contents of the cases; he eyed them stonily; you
witnessed no pricking up of his ears to the tinkling and jingling
rattle made by the coins as Prins poured them out and back again. Nor,
had the money been shingle and the jewels and gold ornaments pieces
of coal, could Prins have worked with duller eyes or more mechanical
motions.
I said to Miss Imogene, pointing as I spoke to the chests that
Vanderdecken might suppose we talked of the treasure in them, "He does
not appear to care the snap of a finger for what is there. If the sense
of possession is dead in him, why should he take whatever he can find
of jewels, gold or silver, from the ships in which he is fortunate
enough to find such things?"
"If your brain will not help you to such matters, how should mine?" she
replied, with a faint smile. "The idea has never before occurred to me,
but be sure 'tis a part of his punishment. He may feel no pleasure in
the possession of his wealth; yet he knows it is on board, and it may
be intended to render every gale that beats him back more and more
bitter and hard by delaying him from carrying his cargo home."
This was shrewdly imagined, I thought, though it did not satisfy me,
because since 'twas sure that he had lost recollection of preceding
gales, succeeding ones could not gain in bitterness. In truth, we were
afloat in a fearful and astonishing Mystery, from which my eagerness to
deliver the sweet and fragrant girl by my side grew keener with every
look of hers that met mine, and with every glance I directed at the
captain and around the ancient interior that time had sickened to the
complexion of the death which worked this ship in the forms of men.
Having satisfied me with a sight of these treasures, Vanderdecken
ordered Prins to have the chests removed, and we then returned to the
table to smoke out the tobacco that remained in our pipes.