Chapter Eight.

Mad Drunk!

“Good gracious, Hiram!” I exclaimed, dropping the wood and rising to my feet, greatly alarmed at his mysterious manner of speaking, as well as by the change in his voice and demeanour. “What d’you mean by talking like that?”

Instead of answering my question directly, however, he asked another.

“D’yer rec’leck, Cholly, thet air banjo belongin’ to Sam Jedfoot ez I bought when the poor darkey’s traps wer’ sold at auction in the fo’c’s’le the day arter he wer lost overboard?”

“Ye–es,” I stammered breathlessly, as the remembrance came back to me all at once of the strange chaunt we had heard in the air around, just before the storm had burst over us in all its fury; our subsequent bustling about having banished its recollection for the moment, “Wha—wha—what about Sam’s banjo, Hiram?”

“It’s clean gone, skedaddled right away, b’y, that’s all!” he replied, in the same impressive way in which he had first spoken. “When I bought the durned thin’, I stowed it atop o’ my chest thaar, in the fo’c’s’le; an’ thaar it wer ez right ez a five-cent piece up to this very mornin’, ez I wer overhaulin’ my duds, to see if I could rig up another pair o’ pants, an’ seed it. But, b’y, it ain’t thaar now, I reckon!”

“Perhaps some one took it out, and forgot to put it back when the gale burst over us,” I suggested, more to reassure myself than because I believed it, for I felt horribly frightened at the thoughts that rapidly surged up in me. “You—you remember, Hiram, we heard the sound of some one playing it just before?”

“D’yer think, b’y, airy of the hands w’u’d hev ben foolin’ round with thet blessid banjo, an’ the ship a’most took aback an’ on her beam-ends?” he retorted indignantly. “No, Cholly, thet wer no mortal fingers ez we heerd a-playin’ thet thaar banjo!”

“And you—you—think—?”

“It wer Sam Jedfoot’s ghost; nary a doubt on it,” he said solemnly, finishing my uncompleted sentence; “thet air, if sperrits walk agen on the airth an’ sea, arter the folk’s ownin’ them is dead an’ drownded!”

I shivered at his words; while, as if to further endorse Hiram’s opinion, the steward, Morris Jones, just then came forward from the cabin to look after the captain’s dinner, although he did not seem in a hurry about it, as usual—a fortunate circumstance, as the fire in the galley under Hiram’s expert manipulation was only now at last beginning to burn up.

“There’s summut wrong ’bout this barquey,” observed the Welshman, opening the conversation in a wonderfully civil way for him, and addressing Hiram, who did not like the man, hardly ever exchanging a word with him if he could help it. “I larfed at that b’y Cholly for saying he seed that nigger cook agen in the cabin arter he went overboard, time the skipper had that row with the fool and shot him; but sperrit or wot it was, I believe the b’y’s right, for I’ve seed it, too!”

“Jehosophat!” exclaimed Hiram; “this air gettin’ darned streenge an’ cur’ous. Whar did ye see the sperrit, mister?”

“Not a minute or so agone,” replied the steward, whose face I could see, by the light of the ship’s lantern in the galley, as well as from the gleams of the now brightly burning fire, looked awe-stricken, as if he had actually seen what he attested. “It was a’most dark, and I was coming out of my pantry when I seed it. Aye, I did, all black, and shiny, and wet, as if he were jist come out o’ the water. I swear it were the nigger cook, or I’m a Dutchman!”

The two men looked fixedly at each other, without uttering another word for a minute or more, I staring at them both in dread expectancy of what they would next say, fancying each instant something more wonderful still would happen. At last, Hiram broke the silence, which had become well-nigh unbearable from a sort of nervous tension, that made me feel creepy and shivery all over.

“I tolled yer jest now, Cholly,” said the Yankee sailor in his ‘Down-East’ drawl, which became all the more emphasised from his slow and solemn mode o’ speaking below his breath—“thet this air shep wer doomed, an’ I sez it now agen, since the stooard hyar hez seed the same ez we all hev seed afore. Thaar’s no denying b’ys, ez how poor Sam’s ghostess walks abroad this hyar ship, an’ thet means sunthin’, or it don’t! I specs thet air darkey’s sperrit ain’t comf’able like, an’ ye ken bet y’r bottom dollar he won’t rest quiet till he feels slick; fur ye sees ez how the poor cuss didn’t come by his death rightful like, in lawful fashion.”

“Aye, and I’ve heard tell that folks as been murdered ’ll haunt the place where they’ve been put away onlawfully,” chimed in Morris Jones. “Not as I’ve ever believed in sperrits and ghostesses till now; but, seein’ is believin’, an’ I can’t go agen my own eyesight. I’d take my davy ’twere Sam Jedfoot I seed jest now; and though I’m no coward, mates, I don’t mind saying I’m mortal feared o’ going nigh the cuddy agen!”

“Never ye fear, old hoss,” replied Hiram encouragingly; albeit, at any other time he would have laughed at the steward’s declaration that he was ‘no coward,’ when he was well known to be the most arrant one in the ship. “It ain’t ye thet the ghost air arter, ye bet. It’s the skipper. Ye remember ez how he promised us all he’d call in at the nearest port an’ hev all the circumferences overhauled, ez he sed?”

“Aye,” responded the Welshman, “that he did. He took his solemn davy, afore the second-mate, an’ Tom Bullover, an’ the lot o’ you, on the maindeck, that time he shot the cook. I heard him from under the break o’ the poop, where I were standin’.”

“Yes, I seed ye keepin’ well to looard!” said Hiram drily. “But, ez I wer a sayin’, the skipper agrees to call in at the fust port we fetches, an’ we’ve b’en close in to Bahia, when we near ran ashore, an’ Rio an’ Buenos Ayres; an’ he’s never put into no port yet!”

“No, nor doesn’t mean to, neither,” chorussed the steward. “I hear him, t’other day, a jokin’ with that brute of a fust-mate about it; an’ both was a sniggerin’: an’ he says as he’ll see you all to old Nick afore he stops anywhere afore he gets to ’Frisco!”

“I reckon, then, sunthin’ bad ’ll come of it,” said Hiram, shaking his head gravely, “Thet nigger’s sperrit don’t haunt this ship fur nothin’, an’ we ain’t see the wuss yet, ye bet! Soon arter Cholly hyar seed Sam’s ghost, ye remembers, we hed thet fire aboard in the forepeak?”

“Aye,” agreed Morris Jones; “an’ the next time—”

“Wer the banjo we heered a-playin’, afore we were caught in thet buster of a gale, an’ the ship wer a’most capsized on her beam-ends,” continued the American, full of his theme. “An’ now, I guess—”

“What?” cried I eagerly, anxiously drinking in every word, deeply impressed with the conversation. “What do you think will happen?”

“’Ructions, thet’s all, b’y,” replied Hiram, hitching up the waistband of his overalls coolly, in the most matter-of-fact way, as if he were only mentioning an ordinary circumstances. “Thet is, if the skipper don’t touch at Callao or Valparaiso. Fur my part, sonny, I guess this hyar ship air doomed, ez I sed afore, an’ I don’t spec, for one, as ever she’ll reach ’Frisco this v’yage; an’ so thinks old Chips, Tom Bullover, thet is, too.”

“Hullo!” exclaimed the carpenter at that moment, poking his head within the galley door, and making me and the Welshman jump with fright, thinking he was Sam’s ghost again. “Who’s hailing me? What’s the row?—anything up?”

“No, bo,” said Hiram. “I wer only tellin’ the stooard hyar an’ Cholly ez how yo agreed with me ez this wer a durned onlocky craft, an’ bound to meet with misfortun’ arter all thet’s come an’ gone aboord.”

“That’s so,” acquiesced Tom; though he did not look much alarmed at the prospect. “The ‘old man,’ though, seems turnin’ round into a better sort—treating us all to grog and sich like.”

“He’d kinder ought to,” growled the other, as he stirred the tea in the coppers, which were just boiling by now; and he then proceeded to tell Tom about the mysterious disappearance of the banjo, and the fact of Morris Jones having seen the apparition again in the cabin aft, winding up with the query—“An’ what d’ye think o’ thet now, Chips?”

“Think?” echoed Tom Bullover, laughing; “why, that you’re kicking up a dust about nothing, my hearty! Missed the banjo out of y’r chest, eh—where are y’r eyes, bo? There it are, hanging right over y’r heads in the galley, on the same cleat where poor Sam Jedfoot left it afore he met his fate! Why, where are y’r peepers—old stick in the mud, hey?”

As he said this, Tom Bullover reached up his hand overhead by the door of the galley, above the spot where he was standing, and as our eyes followed his motions we all could see now Sam’s banjo hanging on the cleat where it always used to be when the negro cook occupied the caboose, the instrument swinging to and fro as Tom touched it.

“Wa-all, I’m jiggered!” cried Hiram, taking up the lantern that he had placed on the deck when he returned from the fo’c’s’le and flashing it on the suspended object, to make assurance doubly sure. “Thaar it air, sure enuff; an’ all I ken say is, I’m jiggered! It jest licks creation, thet it dew!”

“Lor’ bless you, mate! you could ha’ seed it afore if you’d only used your eyes,” replied Tom to this exordium, laughing again; “but, let’s stow all such flummery now about ghostesses an’ sich like, for it’s all moonshine when you looks into the matter; an’ you, an’ Charley, an’ the stooard here, have been all busy rigging up ‘duppies,’ as poor Sam used to call ’em, out o’ your heads, when we poor beggars forrud are dyin’ for our tea. Ain’t it ready yet?”

“Aye, bo, in a brace o’ shakes,” said Hiram, rousing himself and polling up the fire. “I dessay I’m a doggoned fool to be skeart like thet, but I’d hev taken my davy I put the durned thing in my chest a month ago—I would so; an’ then the stooard comed in with his yarn on top o’ what Cholly sed o’ seein’ Sam’s ghost t’other day, an’—an’ I’m a durned fool; thet’s all I sez!”

“You’re none the worse for that, bo,” observed Tom, with a grin at the American’s rather shamefaced apology foe his superstitious fears; and Hiram presently joined in the laugh against himself, as he busied himself in stirring the coppers and tasting the tea, to see whether it was all right yet. I, also, began to feel more comfortable in my mind; while a little colour crept into Morris Jones’ pale face, which had become as white as a sheet before Tom’s advent on the scene, the steward looking as if he were going to faint from fright.

It is wonderful what an effect the courage of one man has in restoring the confidence of others under such circumstances!

Bustling about the galley, ladling out the contents of the coppers as the men came up one by one with their pannikins for their tea, I quickly forgot my scare of a minute or so agone. So, too, apparently, did the steward, who commenced preparing the captain’s dinner, as soon as the fire had burnt up and he could get space enough to use his frying-pan; while, as for Hiram, he was singing away in fine style at his work, dishing up some lobscouse for the men’s supper, in friendly rivalry of Morris Jones, whom he could ‘give points to’ and easily beat in the cooking line, none of us troubling ourselves any longer with any recollection of poor Sam Jedfoot or his ghost.

The gale continued to ease down, and the heavy, rolling sea gradually subsided as night sped on; but, the wind veering round in the middle watch more to the northwards of west, we had to come about on the port tack, steering west-nor’-west, more in towards the Cape. We had plenty of sea room to do this, though, from the good offing we had previously made, being at least five or six degrees well to the southward of the stormy headland at our last reckoning, before the gale came on.

All next day the men were busy getting up a couple of old topsails out of the forepeak and patching them up to take the place of those that had been blown away; and these when got up were close-reefed beforehand, prior to being set, as the wind was freshening again and the weather looked squally.

At the beginning of the second dog-watch the same afternoon, just when we had got everything snug aloft, it came on to blow again, although not quite so fiercely as the previous evening; and it was a case of clew up and furl with all the lighter canvas, the ship being kept under close-reefed topsails and storm staysails, heading out again to sea on the starboard tack.

Thus it continued all that night, squalls of rain and hail, with snow and sleet at intervals for variety sake, sweeping over us, and the ship having her decks washed frequently fore and aft by the heavy Southern Ocean rollers. The next morning, though, it lightened again, and we had a brief spell of fine weather until noon, when we had another buster of it. This occurred just as Captain Snaggs was getting ready to take the sun, and sent the first-mate down in the cabin to look at the chronometer, and ‘stand by’ in order to note the time when he sung out ‘Stop!’ so as to calculate our proper longitude.

The skipper could not get his observation of the sun, however, for the sky, which a moment before had been bright and clear, clouded over again in an instant; and the next minute we were all on board battling again with another specimen of “Cape Horn weather,” too busy to think even where we might be or what latitude or longitude we had fetched. We might, indeed, have been anywhere, for the heavens were black as night, though it was midday, and sky and sea met each other in one vast turmoil, so that it was impossible to see half a cable’s length off the ship!

So it went on for four days, the gale blowing for short periods in angry gusts and then easing down for the space of a watch perhaps, the squalls alternating with spells of fine weather; until, on the fifth morning, we sailed into a comparatively calm sea, running free, with a full sheet on the starboard tack, before a bright, cheery nor’-westerly breeze.

At noon, when the skipper was able at last to take the sun for the first time for six days, he found, on working out our reckoning, that we were in latitude 58 degrees 5 minutes South, and longitude 82 degrees 10 minutes West. In other words, we were considerably to the westwards of the Horn, and fairly on the bosom of the placid Pacific, as indeed its smooth waters already testified.

“Hooray, b’ys; we’ve doubled the durned Cape at last, I guess!” shouted out Captain Snaggs from the break of the poop, whither he had rushed up from below as soon as he had finished his calculation on the log slate, dancing about the deck with excitement; and, then he banged his fist down on the brass rail with a thump that almost doubled it in two, while his wiry billy-goat beard bristled out and wagged to and fro. “Brace up yer yards sharp, an’ keep them bowlin’s taut! Lay her ez near due north ez she’ll fetch, an’ we’ll fix her on a bee-line fur ’Frisco. An’, say, Flinders!”

“Aye, aye, sir!”

“Send up y’r to’gallants an’ r’yals, ez soon ez ye ken; an’ let her rip!”

“Aye, aye, sir!”

“An’, main deck, below thaar!”

“Aye, aye, sir!” shouted back Jan Steenbock, who was on duty here, and was already seeing about getting abaft the upper spars for spreading more sail, having overheard his order to the first-mate—“I vas here, sir!”

“Call all hands to liquor up, sirree. It ain’t every day, I reckon, we gits round the Horn!”

A wild cheer burst from the men, who had clustered in the waist in response to this summons; and the good news of getting round the Cape and having a double allowance of grog proving too much for the majority, the rest of the day was spent in a sort of a grand jollification, the skipper and first-mate ‘carrying on’ in the cabin, while the crew made themselves merry in the fo’c’s’le, whither an extra bottle or two of rum had been smuggled, having been got out of the steward by the expeditive of a little ‘palm oil’ and wheedling in about equal proportions.

I think I may say, without exaggeration, that, with the exception of Jan Steenbock, the second-mate, who showed himself a regular steady fellow all through the voyage, Tom Bullover, and lastly, though by no means least, myself, there was not a single sober man on board the ship that evening, all being more or less under the influence of liquor, from the steward Morris Jones—who, mean Welshman that he was, seemed never loth to drink at any one else’s expense—up to Captain Snaggs, who, from being ‘jolly’ at ‘eight bells,’ became still more excited from renewed applications of rum by midnight; until, at length, early in the middle watch, he rushed out on deck from the cuddy absolutely mad drunk.

He was in a state of wild delirium, and his revolver, ready cocked, was in his hand.

“Snakes an’ alligators!” he yelled out, levelling the weapon at the mainmast, which he mistook for a figure in the half-light of morning, which was just then beginning to break. “I’ve got ye at last, ye durned nigger. Take thet, an’ thet!”

Quick as lightning one report followed another, the bullets coming whistling by the galley where I was standing.

Jan Steenbock, who was on the poop, hearing the crack of a revolver, called out something; whereupon Captain Snaggs turned round and aimed his next shot at him, although, fortunately, it missed the second-mate, on account of Jan dodging behind the companion hatchway just in the nick of time.

The captain then made a bound at the poop ladder, and rushed up the steps swearing awfully; and, first firing at the man at the wheel, whose arm the bullet penetrated, as soon as he gained the poop, he dived down the companion in pursuit of Jan Steenbock, who had disappeared below the booby hatch.

For the next five minutes or more, the ship was in a state of the wildest confusion, the skipper chasing everyone he could see, and all trying to get out of his way, as he dashed after them in his frenzy, rushing, in a sort of desperate game of ‘catch who catch can,’ from the cabin out on to the maindeck, and then up the poop ladder and down the companion into the cuddy again, the second-mate, the steward, and first-mate alike being assailed in turn, and each flying for life before the frantic madman. At last, just as the captain emerged from the cabin for the third time, in hot haste after the steward, the other two having succeeded in concealing themselves, Morris Jones stumbled against a coil of rope by the mainmast bitts, and, his toe at the same time catching in a ring bolt, he sprawled his length on the deck.

“Good Lord!” cried the unfortunate steward, panting out the words with his failing breath. “I’m a dead man! I’m a dead man!”

“By thunder, ye air, ye durned black nigger! Ye air, ez sure ez snakes!” screamed the skipper, in his delirious rage, mistaking the Welshman, as he had the others as well, for poor Sam, the recollection of whom seemed strangely to haunt him the moment the rum got possession of his senses. “I’ve swan I’d shoot ye; so, hyar goes, me joker; y’r last hour hez come, ye bet!”

With these words he pointed his revolver down at Morris Jones, as he lay rolling on the deck at his feet, and fired.

Chapter Nine.

Wrecked!

Although they had not been called yet, for it was only ‘six bells,’ the watch below had been roused out by the commotion and wild cries and yells that rang about the deck. Every man Jack had tumbled up from below, and they were all grouped about the fo’c’s’le, hiding behind the galley like myself, and watching the weird scene going on aft, which, but for the maniacal rage of the captain and his murderous fury, would have been almost comical in its main incidents.

It was a regular steeplechase: the frenzied man hunted those he was after in and out of the cabin, and up the poop ladder, and down the companion stairs, in turn, to begin again anew the same strange game, that was amusing enough save to those personally concerned!

One of the hands, though, had his wits at work besides watching what was going on; and this was Tom Bullover, my friend the carpenter.

He recollected what the steward had said on a former occasion of the captain having had a fit of the horrors from excessive drinking; and, although it was too late now to take away the skipper’s revolver before he could effect any mischief with it, there was still time to prevent his doing any further harm.

So, Tom, with a coil of rope over his arm, stealthily made his way aft, and just as Captain Snaggs aimed at the prostrate body of the steward the carpenter threw a running bowline he had made in the rope round the captain’s shoulders, jerking him backwards at the very moment he fired the revolver. This caused the bullet to be diverted from its aim, for it passed through the bulwarks, instead of perforating Morris Jones’ somewhat corpulent person.

The next instant, two or three more of the men going to Tom’s assistance, Captain Snaggs was dragged down on the deck, raging and foaming at the mouth; when, binding him securely hand and foot, they lifted him up and carried him into his cabin, where they strapped him down in his cot, powerless to do any more injury to himself or anyone else, until his delirium should be over.

As for the steward, he fainted dead away from fright; and it required a good deal of shaking and rubbing on the part of Tom Bullover and Jan Steenbock to bring him back to life again—the latter now coming out of the cabin, holding a slip noose similar to that used by the carpenter in snaring the skipper with, and evidently intended for the same purpose, although a trifle too late to be of service then.

Captain Snaggs himself recovered his consciousness about noon the same day, but did not have the slightest recollection of his mad orgy, the only actual sufferers from which were Morris Jones, who really had been more frightened than hurt, and the helmsman, Jim Chowder, who, in lieu of having his arm broken, as he had at first cried out, had only a slight bullet graze through the fleshy part of it; so, considering the skipper fired off no less than five shots out of the six which his revolver contained, it was a wonder more were not grievously wounded, if not killed, when he ran a-muck like that!

When Hiram Bangs and I met in the galley, shortly after the row was over, we both compared notes, the American saying that he’d been roused up from sleep, not by the noise of the shooting or rampaging about the deck, but by the sound of Sam’s voice singing in the hold, and he knew at once that some mischief was going to happen, “ez it allers did when he heerd the durned ghostess afore!”

I declare he made me feel more alarmed by this remark than all that had previously occurred, and I had to raise my eyes to assure myself that Sam’s banjo was yet hanging in its accustomed place over the door of the galley, before I could go on with my task of getting the men’s early coffee ready, to serve out as soon as the watch was changed, ‘eight bells’ having been struck shortly before.

Tom Bullover, though, when presently he lounged up forward, and I told him what Hiram said, only laughed.

“It’s all stuff and nonsense, Charley,” he chuckled out; “you an’ Hiram ’ll be the death of me some day, with your yarns o’ ghostesses an’ such like. The skipper didn’t see no sperrit as you thinks when he got mad this mornin’; it’s all that cussed rum he took because he got round Cape Horn. Guess, as our mate here says, the rum ‘got round’ him!”

Hiram laughed, too, at this.

“Heave ahead an’ carry on, old hoss,” he said; “I reckon ye won’t riz my dander, fur what I tells Cholly I knows for true, an’ nuthin’ ’ll turn me agen it. Why, Tom, when I wer down Chicopee way—”

“Avast there, mate, an’ give us some coffee,” cried Tom, interrupting him at this point, and some others of the crew coming up at the moment, the conversation was not renewed, which I was not sorry for, Hiram’s talk about ghosts not being very cheerful.

During the day, as I’ve said, Captain Snaggs got better, and came on deck again, looking like himself, but very pale. His face, however, seemed to have become wonderfully thinner in such a short space of time, so thin indeed that he appeared to be all nose and beard, the two meeting each other in the middle, like a pair of nut-crackers!

He was much quieter, too, for he did not swear a bit, as he would have done before, at the man at the wheel, who, startled by his coming softly up the companion without previous notice, when he fancied he was lying in his cot, let the ship fall off so that she almost broached-to, in such a way as almost to carry her spars by the board!

No, he did not utter a single harsh word.

“Steady thaar!” was all he called out; “kip her full an’ by, an’ steer ez naar north ez ye ken!”

This was about the beginning of July, and we had from then bright weather, with westerly and nor’-west winds all the way up the Pacific, past the island of Juan Fernandez, which we saw like a haze of green in the distance.

After this, making to cross the Equator for the second time—our first time being in the Atlantic Doldrums—somewhere between the meridians 100 degrees to 102 degrees, we proceeded on steadily northward, picking up the south-east trade-winds in about latitude 20 degrees South, when nearly opposite Arica on the chart, although, of course, out of sight of land, being more than a couple of hundred leagues away from the nearest part of the coast.

In about twenty days’ time we got near the Equator, when we met with variable winds and calms, while a strong indraught sucked us out of our course into the Bay of Panama.

The temperature just then grew very hot, and the captain, taking to drinking again, soon recovered his spirits and his temper, which had latterly grown so smooth and equable that we hardly knew him for the same man.

In a short space, however, the rum fully restored him to his old quarrelsome self, and he and the first-mate, Mr Flinders, had an awful row one night, when the skipper threatened to send the mate forward and promote Jan Steenbock in his place. Captain Snaggs had never forgiven him for the cowardice and want of sailorly instinct he displayed at the time of the alarm of fire in the forepeak; and the fact also of Mr Flinders having lain for two days drunk in his bunk after their jollification on rounding Cape Horn, did not tend to impress the skipper any the more strongly in his favour.

I remember the evening well.

It was on the 28th July.

We were becalmed, I recollect; but, in spite of this, a strong set of tide, or some unknown current, was carrying us, in a west-nor’-west direction, away out of the Bay of Panama, at the mouth of which we had been rolling and roasting in the broiling tropical sun for a couple of days, without apparently advancing an inch on our way northwards towards San Francisco, our destination, which we were now comparatively near, so to speak, but still separated by a broad belt of latitude of between eighteen hundred and two thousand miles—a goodish stretch of water!

I also remember well that Captain Snaggs roared so loudly to the mate and the mate back to him during their altercation in the cuddy that we on deck could hear every word they said; for, the night was hot and close, with never a breath of wind stirring, and the air had that oppressive and sulphurous feel which it always has when there is thunder about or some great atmospherical change impending.

The skipper and Mr Flinders were arguing about the ship’s course, the former declaring it to be right, and the latter as vehemently to be altogether wrong.

The mate, so opposite were their opinions, said that if we sailed on much longer in the same direction towards which the ship had been heading before being becalmed, she would be landed high and dry ashore at Guayaquil; while the skipper, as strongly, protested that we were already considerably to the northward of the Galapagos Islands.

“Ye’re a durned fule, an’ a thunderin’ pig-headed fule ez well,” we heard the captain say to the other, as he came up the companion, roaring back behind him; “but, jest to show ye how thunderin’ big a fule ye air, I’ll jest let ye hev y’r own way—though, mind ye, if the ship comes to grief, ye’ll hev to bear all the muss.”

“I don’t mind thet, nary a red cent,” boasted the other in his sneering way. “Guess I’ve a big enuff pile to hum, out Chicago way, to buy up ship an’ cargy ez well!”

“Guess ye shall hev y’r way, bo!” then yelled out the skipper, calling at the same time to the helmsman to ease the helm off, as well as to the watch to brace round the yards; and the light land breeze, just then coming off from shore, made the Denver City head off at right angles to her previous course, the wash of water swishing pleasantly past her bows, as her sails bellied out for a brief spell.

But, not for long.

Within the next half-hour or so the heavens, which had previously been bright with myriads of stars overhead, became obscured with a thick darkness, while the slight land breeze slowly died away.

Then, a hoarse, rumbling sound was heard under the sea, and the ship was violently heaved up and down in a sort of quick, violent rocking motion, unlike any thing I had ever felt, even in the heaviest storm.

“An airthquake, I guess,” said Captain Snaggs, nonchalantly; “thet is, if thaar’s sich a thing ez an airthquake at sea!”

He sniggered over this joke; but, just then, I heard the same strange, weird music, like Sam’s banjo, played gently in the distance, similarly to what we heard before the burst of the storm off Cape Horn.

“Lord, save us!” cried the captain, in hoarse accents of terror. “Thaar it air agen!”

Even as he spoke, however, the ship seemed to be lifted aloft on a huge rolling wave, that came up astern of us without breaking; and, then, after being carried forwards with wonderful swiftness, she was hurled bodily on the shore of some unknown land near, whose outlines we could not distinguish through the impenetrable darkness that now surrounded us like a veil.

We knew we were ashore, however, for we could feel a harsh, grating noise under the vessel’s keel.

Still, beyond and above this noise, I seemed yet to hear the wild, sad chaunt that haunted us.

There was a light hung in the galley, and I looked in again to see if the negro’s banjo was in its accustomed place, so as to judge whether the sound was due to my imagination or not.

Holding up the lantern, I flashed its light across the roof of the galley.

I could hardly believe my eyes.

Sam’s banjo was no longer there!

Chapter Eleven.

Settling Matters.

“Yase, it vas me,” said Jan Steenbock, at once turning round and confronting the other, not in the least discomposed by his sudden appearance, and speaking in his usual slow, deliberate way. “I zays to ze leedel boys here you’s von big vool, and zo you vas!”

“Tarnation!” exclaimed Mr Flinders, stepping out on to the deck over the coaming of the booby hatch, and advancing in a threatening manner towards the Dane, who faced him still imperturbably. “Ye jest say thet agen, mister, an’ I’ll—”

The second-mate did not wait for him to finish his sentence.

“I zays you’s von big vool, the biggest vool of all ze vools I vas know,” he cried in his deep tones. Every word sounded distinctly and trenchantly, with a sort of sledge-hammer effect, that made the Yankee mate writhe again. “But, my vren’, you vas badder dan dat, vor you vas a droonken vool, and vas peril ze sheep and ze lifes of ze men aboord mit your voolness and ze rhum you vas trink below, mitout minting your duty. Oh, yase, you vas more bad dan one vool, Mister Vlinders; I vas vatch yous ze whole of ze voyage, and I spik vat I zink and vat I zees!”

“Jee-rusalem, ye white-livered Dutchman!” screamed out the other, now white with rage, and with his eyes glaring like those of a tiger, as he threw out his arms and rushed at Jan Steenbock, “I’ll give ye goss fur ev’ry lyin’ word ye hev sed agen me, ye bet. I’m a raal Down-East alligator, I am, ye durned furrin reptyle! Ye’ll wish ye wer never rizzed or came athwart my hawse, my hearty, afore I’ve plugged ye out an’ done with ye, bo, I guess; for I’m a regular screamer from Chicago, I am, an’ I’ll wipe the side-walk with ye, I will!”

This was ‘tall talk,’ as Hiram remarked, he and several others of the crew having turned out from their bunks by this time, roused by the altercation, all gathering together in the waist, full of interest and expectancy at witnessing such an unwonted treat as a free fight between their officers. But, the first-mate’s brave words, mouth them out as he did with great vehemence and force of expression, did not frighten the stalwart Dane, self-possessed and cool to the last, one whit.

No, not a bit of it.

Quietly putting himself into an easy position of defence, with his right arm guarding his face and body, Jan Steenbock, throwing out his left fist with a rapidity of movement quite unexpected in one of his slow, methodical demeanour, caught the blustering Yankee, as he advanced on him with hostile thoughts intent, full butt between the eyes, the blow being delivered straight from the shoulder and having sufficient momentum to have felled an ox.

At all events, it was enough for Mr Flinders.

Whack!

It resounded through the ship; and, uttering a half-stifled cry, the mate measured his length along the deck, the back of his head knocking against the planks with a sound that seemed to be the echo of the blow that brought him low, though softer and more like a thud—tempered and toned down, no doubt, by the subduing effect of distance!

This second assault on his thick skull, however, instead of stunning him, as might have been imagined, appeared to bring the mate back to consciousness, and roused him indeed to further action; for, scrambling up from his recumbent position, with his face showing unmistakable marks of the fray already, and his eyes not glaring quite so much, for they were beginning to close up, he got on his feet again, and squared up to Jan Steenbock, with his arms swinging round like those of a windmill.

He might just as well have tried to batter down a stone wall, under the circumstances, as endeavour to break down the other’s guard by any such feeble attempt, although both were pretty well matched as to size and strength.

Jan paid no attention to his roundabout and random onslaught, fending off his ill-directed blows easily enough with his right arm, which was well balanced, a little forward across his chest, protecting him from every effort of his enemy.

He just played with him for a minute, during which the Yankee mate, frothing with fury and uttering all sorts of terrible threats, that were as powerless to hurt Jan as his pointless attack, danced round his watchful antagonist like a pea on a hot griddle; and then, the Dane, tired at length of the fun, advancing his left, delivered another terrific drive from the shoulder that tumbled Mr Flinders backwards under the hood of the booby hatch, where he nearly floored Captain Snaggs, on his way up from the cuddy—the skipper having been also aroused by the tumult, the scene of the battle being almost immediately over his swinging cot, and the concussion of the first-mate’s head against the deck having awakened him before his time, which naturally did not tend to improve his temper.

“Hillo, ye durned Cape Cod sculpin!” he gasped out, Mr Flinders’ falling body having caught him full in the stomach and knocked all the wind out of him. “Thet’s a kinder pretty sorter way to come tumblin’ down the companion, like a mad bull in fly time! What’s all this infarnal muss about, hey?”

So shouting, between his pauses to take breath, the skipper shoved the mate before him out of the hatchway, repeating his question again when both had emerged on the poop. “Now, what’s this infarnal muss about, hey?”

Taken thus in front and rear Mr Flinders hardly knew what to say, especially as Jan Steenbock’s fist had landed on his mouth, loosening his teeth and making the blood flow, his countenance now presenting a pitiable spectacle, all battered and bleeding.

“The—the—thet durned skallawag thaar hit me, sirree,” he stammered and stuttered, spitting out a mouthful of blood and a couple of his front teeth, which had been driven down his throat almost by Jan Steenbock’s powerful blow. “He—he tried to—to take my life. He did so, cap. But, I guess I’ll be even with him, by thunder!—I’ll soon rip my bowie inter him, an’ settle the coon; I will so, you bet!”

Mr Flinders fumbled at his waistbelt as he spoke, trying to pull out the villainous-looking, dagger-hilted knife he always carried there, fixed in a sheath stuck inside the back of his trousers; but his rage and excitement making his hand tremble with nervous trepidation, Captain Snaggs was able to catch his arm in time and prevent his drawing the ugly weapon.

“No ye don’t, mister; no ye don’t, by thunder! so long’s I’m boss hyar,” cried the skipper. “Ef ye fits aboord my shep, I reckon ye’ll hev to fit fair, or else reckon up with Ephraim O Snaggs; yes, so, mister, thet’s so. I’ll hev no knifing aboord my ship!”

The captain appeared strangely forgetful of his own revolver practice in the case of poor Sam Jedfoot, and also of his having ran a-muck and nearly killed the helmsman and Morris Jones, the steward, thinking he was still in pursuit of the negro cook—which showed the murderous proclivities of his own mind, drunk or sober. However, all the same, he stopped the first-mate now from trying to use his knife; although the latter would probably have come off the worst if he had made another rush at Jan Steenbock, who stood on the defence, prepared for all emergencies.

“No, ye don’t. Stow it, I tell ye, or I’ll throttle ye, by thunder!” said the skipper, shaking Mr Flinders in his wiry grasp like a terrier would a rat; while, turning to Jan, he asked: “An’ what hev ye ter say about this darned muss—I s’pose it’s six o’ one an’ half-dozen o’ t’other, hey?”

“Misther Vlinders vas roosh to sthrike me, and I vas knock hims down,” said Jan Steenbock, in his laconic fashion. “He vas get oop and roosh at me vonce mores, and I vas knock hims down on ze deck again; and zen, you vas coom oop ze hatchway, and dat vas all.”

“But, confound ye!” cried the other, putting in his spoke, “you called me a fule fust!”

“So ye air a fule,” said Captain Snaggs, “an’ a tarnation fule, too, I reckon—the durndest fule I ever seed; fur the old barquey wouldn’t be lyin’ hyar whaar she is, I guess, but fur yer durned pigheadedness!”

“Zo I vas zay,” interposed Jan Steenbock. “I das tell hims it vas all bekos he vas one troonken vool dat we ras wreck, zir.”

“Ye never sed a truer word, mister,” replied the skipper, showing but little sympathy for Mr Flinders, whom he ordered to go below and wash his dirty face, now the ‘little unpleasantness’ between himself and his brother mate was over. “Still, hyar we air, I guess, an’ the best thing we ken do is ter try an’ get her off. Whaar d’yer reckon us to be, Mister Steenbock, hey?”

“On ze Galapagos,” answered the second-mate modestly, in no ways puffed up by his victory over the other or this appeal to his opinion by Captain Snaggs, who, like a good many more people in the world, worshipped success, and was the first to turn his back on his own champion when defeated. “I zink ze sheep vas shtruck on Abingdon Island. I vas know ze place, cap’n; oh, yase, joost zo!”

“Snakes an’ alligators, mister! Ye doan’t mean ter say ye hev been hyar afore, hey?”

“Ja zo, cap’n,” replied Jan Steenbock, in his slow and matter-of-fact way, taking he other’s expression literally; “but dere vas no shnake, dat I vas zee, and no alligator. Dere vas nozings but ze terrapin tortoise and ze lizards on ze rocks! I vas here one, doo, dree zummers ago, mit a drading schgooner vrom Guayaquil after a cargo of ze orchilla weed, dat fetch goot price in Equador. I vas sure it vas Abingdon Islant vrom dat tall big peak of montane on ze port side dat vas cal’t Cape Chalmers; vor, we vas anchor’t to looard ven we vas hunting for ze weed orchilla and ze toordles.”

“Oh, indeed,” said the skipper. “I’ll look at the chart an’ take the sun at noon, so to kalkerlate our bearin’s; but I guess ye’re not fur out, ez I telled thet dodrotted fule of a Flinders we’d be safe ter run foul o’ the cussed Galapagos if we kept thet course ez he steered! Howsomedever, let’s do sunthin’, an’ not stan’ idling hyar no longer. Forrad, thaar, ye lot o’ star-gazin’, fly-catchin’ lazy lubbers! make it eight bells an’ call the watch to sluice down decks! Ye doan’t think, me jokers, I’m goin’ to let ye strike work an’ break articles ’cause the shep’s aground, do ye? Not if I knows it, by thunder! Stir yer stumps an’ look smart, or some o’ ye’ll know the reason why!”

This made Tom Bullover and the other hands bustle about on the fo’c’s’le, although buckets had to be lowered over the side aft to wash down the decks with, so as to clear away all the volcano dust that was still lying about, for the head-pump could not be used as usual on account of the forepart of the ship being high and dry.

Meanwhile, Hiram and I busied ourselves in the galley, blowing up the fire and getting the coffee ready for breakfast, so that ere long things began to look better.

The sun by this time was more than half-way up overhead, but as a steady south-west breeze was blowing in still from the sea right across our quarter, for the ship was lying on the sand with her bowsprit pointing north by west, the temperature was by no means so hot as might have been expected from the fact of our being so close to the Equator; and so, after our morning meal was over, the skipper had all hands piped to lighten the vessel, in order to prepare her for our going afloat again.

Captain Snaggs took the precaution, however, of getting out anchors ahead and astern, so as to secure her in her present position, so that no sudden shift of wind or rise of the tide might jeopardise matters before everything was ready for heaving her off, the sheet and starboard bower being laid out in seven-fathom water, some fifty yards aft of the rudder post, in a direct line with the keel, so that there should be as little difficulty as possible in kedging her. These anchors were carried out to sea by a gang of men in the jolly-boat, which was let down amidships just where we were awash, by a whip and tackle rigged up between the main and crossjack yards for the purpose.

By the time this was done, from the absence of any shadow cast by the sun, which was high over our mastheads, it was evidently close on to noon; so, the skipper brought his sextant and a big chart he had of the Pacific on deck, spreading the latter over the cuddy skylight, while he yelled out to the dilapidated Mr Flinders, who was repairing damages below, to watch the chronometer and mark the hour when he sang out.

Captain Snaggs squinted through the eye-glass of his instrument for a bit with the sextant raised aloft, as if he were trying to stare old Sol out of countenance.

“Stop!” he sang out in a voice of thunder. “Stop!”

Then he took another observation, followed by a second stentorian shout of “Stop!”

A pause ensued, and then he roared below to Mr Flinders, asking him what he made it, the feeble voice of the first-mate giving him in return the Greenwich time as certified by the chronometer; when after a longish calculation and measuring of distances on the chart, with a pair of compasses and the parallel ruler, Captain Snaggs gave his decision in an oracular manner, with much wagging of his goatee beard.

“I guess yo’re about right this journey, Mister Steenbock,” he said, holding up the chart for the other’s inspection. “I kalkelate we’re jest in latitood 0 degrees 32 minutes north, an’ longitood 90 degrees 45 minutes west—pretty nigh hyar, ye see, whaar my finger is on this durned spec, due north’ard of the Galapagos group on the Equator. This chart o’ mine, though, don’t give no further perticklers, so I reckon it must be Abingdon Island, ez ye says, ez thet’s the furthest north, barrin’ Culpepper Island, which is marked hyar, I see, to the nor’-west, an’ must be more’n fifty leagues, I guess, away.”

“Joost zo,” replied Jan Steenbock, mildly complacent at his triumph. “I vas zink zo, and I zays vat I zink!”

The point being thus satisfactorily settled, the men had their dinner, which Hiram and I had cooked in the galley while the anchors were being got out and the skipper was taking his observation of the sun; and then, after seeing that everything was snug in the caboose, I was just about sneaking over the side to explore the strange island and inspect more closely the curious animals I had noticed, when Captain Snaggs saw me from the poop and put the stopper on my little excursion.

“None o’ y’r skulking my loblolly b’y!” he shouted out. “Jest ye lay aloft an’ send down the mizzen-royal. This air no time fur skylarkin’ an’ jerymanderin’. We wants all hands at work.”

With that, I had, instead of enjoying myself ashore as I had hoped, to mount up the rigging and help the starboard watch in unbending the sails, which, when they reached the deck, were rolled up by the other watch on duty below, and lowered to the beach over the side, where they were stowed in a heap on the sand above high-water mark.

The lighter spars were next sent down, and then the upper and lower yards by the aid of strong purchases, all being similarly placed ashore, with the ropes coiled up as they were loosed from their blocks and fastenings aloft; so, by the time sunset came the ship was almost a sheer hulk, only her masts and standing rigging remaining.

Poor old thing, she was utterly transformed, lying high and dry there, with all her top hamper gone, and shorn of all her fair proportions!

I noticed this when I came down from aloft, the Denver City looking so queer from the deck, with her bare poles sticking up, like monuments erected to her past greatness; but, although I was tired enough with all the jobs I had been on, unreeling ropes, and knotting, and splicing, and hauling, till I hardly knew whether I stood on my head or my heels, I was not too tired to take advantage of the kind offer Hiram made me when I went into the galley to help get the men’s tea ready.

“Ye ken skip, Cholly, an’ hev a lark ashore, ef ye hev a mind to,” said he; “I’ll look arter the coppers.”

Didn’t I ‘skip,’ that’s all.

I was down the sides in a brace of shakes, and soon wandering at my own sweet will about the beach, wondering at everything I saw—the lava bed above the sand, the tall, many-armed cactus plants, with their fleshy fingers and spikes at the ends, like long tenpenny nails, the giant tortoises, which hissed like snakes as they waddled out of my path—wondering, aye, wondering at everything!

Hearing the cooing of doves again, as I had done in the morning, I followed the sound, and presently came to a small grove of trees on an incline above the flat lava expanse, to the right of the head of the little bay where the ship was stranded.

Here grass and a species of fern were growing abundantly around a pool of water, fed from a tiny rivulet that trickled down from the cliff above; and I had no sooner got under the shelter of the leafy branches than I was surrounded by a flock of the pretty grey doves whose gentle cooing I had heard.

They were so tame that they came hopping on my head and outstretched hand, and I was sorry I had not brought some biscuit in my pocket, so that I might feed them.

It was so calm and still in the mossy glade that I threw myself down on the grass, remaining until it got nearly dark, when I thought it about time to return to the ship, though loth to leave the doves, who cooed a soft farewell after me, which I continued to hear long after I lost sight of them.

I got back to the shore safely without further adventure, until I was close under the ship, when I had a fearful fright from a huge tortoise that I ran against, and which seemed to spit in my face, it hissed at me so viciously.

It must have been four feet high at least, and what its circumference was goodness only knows, for I could have laid down on its back with ease, as it was as broad as a table.

I did not attempt to do this, however, but scrambled up the ship’s side as quickly as I could, and made my way to the galley, in order to get my tea, which Hiram had promised to keep hot for me.

Outside the galley, though, I met the American, who frightened me even more than the big tortoise had done the minute before.

“Say, Cholly,” he cried, his voice trembling with terror, “thet ghost of the nigger cook air hauntin’ us still; I seed him thaar jest now, a-sottin’ in the corner of the caboose an’ a-playin’ on his banjo, ez true ez I’m a livin’ sinner!”

Chapter Twelve.

The Golden Madonna.

“My goodness! you don’t mean that, Hiram?” I exclaimed, seeing from his earnest manner that he was not trying to hoax me, but stating what he really believed to be a fact. “When was it that you saw the ghost?”

“Jest on sundown, Cholly, arter the men hed thaar tea an’ cleared out, the whole bilin’ ov ’em, skipper an’ all, goin’ ashore, like ez ye did, sonny, afore ’em, to prospect the country an’ look at the big turtle an’ other streenge varmint. Thaar warn’t a soul left aboard but thet brute Flinders an’ myself; an’ he wer so basted by the lickin’ ez Jan Steenbock giv him thet he wer lyin’ down in the cabin an’ pizenin’ hisself with rum to mend matters. But, I wer thet dead beat, with shiftin’ gear an’ sendin’ down yards, thet I wer fit fur nuthin’ but ter lean over the gangway an’ smoke a pipe afore turnin’ in, fur I wer mighty tired out, I wer!”

“You must have been, Hiram,” said I, “for, I’m sure I was, and am so still.”

“Yes, I wer dead beat, an’ thaar I rested agen the gangway, smokin’ an’ lookin’ at the chaps that wer a-skylarkin’ with a big turtle they had capsized on ter his back, so ez he couldn’t make tracks; when all at oncest I thort o’ the galley fire a-goin’ out an’ yer tea, Cholly, ez I promist to keep bilin’, an’ so I made back fur the caboose. It wer then close on dark, an’ a sorter fog beginnin’ to spring from seaward afore the land breeze riz an’ blew it orf.”

“And then,” I put in, on his pausing at this point, hanging on his words intently, “what happened then?”

“Lord sakes! Cholly, it kinder makes the creeps come over me to tell you,” he replied, with a shudder, while his voice fell impressively. “I wer jest nigh the galley when I heerd a twang on the banjo, same ez poor old Sam used ter giv’ the durned thin’ afore he began a-playin’ on it—a sorter loudish twang, as if he gripped all the strings at oncet; an’ then, ther’ come a softer sort o’ toonfal ‘pink-a-pink-a-pong, pong,’ an’ I guess I heerd a wheezy cough, ez if the blessed old nigger wer clarin’ his throat fur to sing—I did, so!”

“Goodness gracious, Hiram!” I ejaculated, breathless with expectation, “you must have been frightened!”

“I wer so,” he replied—“I wer so skeart thet I didn’t know what ter dew; but, thinks I, let’s see if anythin’s thaar; an’ so I jest look’t round the corner o’ the galley through the half-door, an’, b’y, thaar I seed Sam a-sottin’, ez I sed, an’ a-playin’ his banjo ez nat’rel ez ever wer!”

“But the banjo wasn’t there last night,” I interposed here. “I looked for it almost as soon as we heard the sound of it being played at the time of the earthquake, and I couldn’t see it hanging up over the door where Tom Bullover, you remember, pointed it out to us.”

“Wa-all, all I ken say is thet I seed the ghostess with the durned thin’ thaar in his grip. I didn’t wait fur to see no more, I can tell ye, Cholly!”

“What did you do?”

“I jest made tracks for the fo’c’s’le, an’ turned inter my bunk, I wer so skeart, till the skipper an’ the rest o’ the hands came aboard ag’in, when I comed out an’ stood hyar a-waitin’ fur ye. I ain’t seed Tom Bullover yet; so ye’re the fust I hev told o’ the sperrit hauntin’ us agen, Cholly.”

“Do you think it’s gone yet?” I asked; “perhaps it is still there.”

“I dunno,” he replied. “P’raps ye’d best go fur to see. I’m jiggered if I will!”

I hesitated at this challenge; it was more than I bargained for.

“It’s all dark now,” I said, glancing towards the galley, from which no gleam came, as usual, across the deck, as was generally the case at night-time; “I suppose the fire has gone out?”

“’S’pose it air,” answered Hiram; “guess it’s about time it wer, b’y, considerin’ I wer jest a-going fur to make it up when I seed Sam. I reckon, though, if ye hev a mind fur to look in, ye can get a lantern aft from the stooard. I seed him a-buzzin’ round the poop jest now, fur he hailed me ez he poked his long jib-boom of a nose up the companion; but, I didn’t take no notice o’ the cuss, fur I wer outer sorts like, feelin’ right down chawed up!”

“All right,” said I, anxious to display my courage before Hiram, his fright somehow or other emboldening me. “I will get a lantern at once and go into the galley.”

So saying, I went along the deck aft, passing into the cuddy by the door under the break of the poop, and there I found Morris Jones, the steward, in the pantry.

He was putting a decanter and glass on a tray for the captain, who was sitting in the cabin, preparing for a jollification after his exertions of the day; for he had returned in high glee from his inspection of the ship’s position with Jan Steenbock, whom he took with him to explain the different points of land and the anchorage.

Jan Steenbock was just leaving the skipper as I entered, refusing, as I surmised from the conversation, his pressing invitation to have a parting drink—a sign of great cordiality with him.

“Wa-all, hev yer own way, but a drop o’ good rum hurts nary a one, ez I ken see,” I heard Captain Snaggs say. “Good-night, Mister Steenbock. I guess we’ll set to work in airnest ter-morrer, an’ see about gettin’ the cargy out to lighten her; an’ then, I reckon, mister, we’ll try y’r dodge o’ diggin’ a dock under her.”

“Yase, dat vas goot,” said the Dane, in his deep voice, in answer. “We will dig oop the zand vrom her kil: an’ zen, she vill vloat, if dere vas no leaks an’ she vas not hoort her back by taking ze groond.”

“Jest so,” replied the skipper; and Morris Jones having gone into the cabin with the glasses and water on his tray, I heard a gurgling sound, as if Captain Snaggs was pouring out some of his favourite liquor and gulping it down. “Ah, I feel right chunky arter thet, I guess! Yes, Mister Steenbock, we’ll float her right off; fur, I don’t think she’s started a plank in her; an’ if we shore her up properly we ken dig the sand from under her, ez ye sez, an’ then she’ll go off ez right ez a clam, when we brings a warp round the capstan from the ankers astern.”

“Ja zo,” agreed Jan Steenbock. “We vill wait and zee.”

“Guess not,” retorted the skipper. “We’ll dew better, we’ll work and try, me joker, an’ dew thet right away smart ter-morrer!”

Captain Snaggs sniggered at this, as if he thought it a joke; and then, I could hear Jan Steenbock wish him good-night, leaving him to his rum and the companionship of Mr Flinders—who must have smelt the liquor, for I caught his voice muttering something about being ‘durned dry,’ but I did not listen any longer, looking out for the steward, who presently followed Jan Steenbock out of the cabin.

“Well, younker, what d’ye want?” Morris Jones asked me, when he came up to where I was still standing alongside his pantry. “I didn’t have time to speak to ye afore. What is it?”

“I want a lantern,” said I. “The galley fire’s gone out.”

“All right, here you are, you can take this,” he replied, handing me one he had lit. “Any more ghostesses about forrud? That blessed nigger’s sperrit oughter go ashore, now we’ve come to this outlandish place, and leave us alone!”

“You’d better not joke about it,” I said solemnly. “Hiram has seen something awful to-night.”

“What d’ye mean?” he cried, turning white in a moment, as I could see by the light of the lantern, and all his braggadocio vanishing. “What d’ye mean?”

“Only not to halloo too loud till you’re out of the wood,” said I, going off forwards. “Hiram has seen Sam’s ghost again, that’s all!”

I felt all the more encouraged by this little passage of arms with the funky Welshman; so, I marched up to the galley door as brave as brass, holding out, though, the lantern in front of me, to light up the place, Hiram, ashamed of his own fears, coming up close behind, and looking in over my shoulder.

Neither of us, though, saw any cause for alarm, for there was no one there; and I was inclined to believe that Hiram had fallen asleep and dreamt the yarn he told me, the more especially as there was a strong smell of tobacco about the place, as if some one had been there recently smoking.

The American, however, was indignant at the bare suggestion of this.

“What d’yer take me fur, Cholly,” he said. “I tell ye I seed him a-sottin’ down thaar in thet corner, an’ heerd the banjo ez plain ez if it wer a-playin’ now! Look at the fire, too; ain’t that streenge? It wer jest a-staggerin’ out when I comed hyar fur to put on some more wood to make it burn up, an’ thaar it air now, ez if some one hez jest been a-lightin’ on it!”

It was as he said. The fire seemed to have been fresh lit, for there was even a piece of smouldering paper in the stoke hole.

It was certainly most mysterious, if Hiram had not done it, which he angrily asserted he had not, quite annoyed at my doubting his word.

While I was debating the point with him, Tom Bullover appeared at the door, with his usual cheerful grin.

“Hullo!” cried he; “what’s the row between you two?”

Thereupon Hiram and I both spoke at once, he telling his version of the story and I mine.

“Well, don’t let such foolish nonsense make you ill friends,” said Tom, grinning. “I dare say you’re both right, if matters could only be explained—Hiram, in thinking he saw Sam’s ghost, and you, Charley, in believing he dreamt it all out of his head. As for the fire burning up, I can tell you all about that, for seeing it just at the last gasp, I stuck in a bit of paper and wood to light it, so as to be more cheerful. I likewise lit my own pipe arterwards, which fully accounts for what you fellows couldn’t understand.”

“Thaar!” exclaimed Hiram triumphantly; “I tolled you so, Cholly.”

“All right,” I retorted. “It’s just as I said, and there’s nothing mysterious about it.”

Each of us remained of his own opinion, but Tom Bullover chaffed us out of all further argument, and we presently followed the example of the other hands, who were asleep snoring in the fo’c’s’le, and turned into our bunks; while Tom went aft to relieve Jan Steenbock as look-out, there being no necessity for all of the watch to be on deck, the ship being ashore, and safer even than if she had been at anchor.

In the morning, I was roused up by the cooing doves again, and the very first man I met after turning out was Morris Jones, who looked seedy and tired out, as if he had been awake all night.

“What’s the matter?” I asked him, as he came into the galley, where I was busy at my morning duty, getting the coppers filled for the men’s coffee, and poking up the fire, which still smouldered, for I had banked it, so as to keep it alight after I turned in. “Anything happened?”

“You were right, Cholly, in tellin’ me not to holler till I was out of the wood last night,” he said solemnly. “I seed thet arterwards the same as Hiram!”

“Saw what?”

“The nigger’s ghost.”

“Nonsense!” I cried, bursting out into a laugh, his face looked so woe-begone, while his body seemed shrunk, giving him the most dilapidated appearance. “You must have been taking some of the cap’en’s rum.”

“None o’ your imperence, master Cholly,” said he, aiming a blow at my head, which I dexterously avoided. “I never touches none o’ the skipper’s ruin; I wouldn’t taste the nasty stuff now, after all I’ve seen it’s done. No, I tell you straight, b’y, I ain’t lying. I see Sam Jedfoot last night as ever was, jest soon arter you went away from the cuddy with the lantern.”

“You did?”

“Yes, I’ll take my davy on it. He comed right through the cabin, and walked past my pantry, stepping over the deck jest as if he was alive; and then I saw something like a flash o’ light’ing, and when I looked agen, being blinded at first, there he were a-floating in the air, going out o’ sight over the side.”

“Did you go to see what had become of him?” I said jokingly, on hearing this. “Where did he make for when he got over the side?”

“I didn’t look no more,” answered the steward, taking my inquiry in earnest. “I were too frightened.”

“What did you do, then?”

“I just stopped up there in my pantry all night, locking the door, so as to prevent no one from getting in. Aye, I kep’ two lights burning, to scare the ghost if he should come again; and theer I stop’t till daylight, when I heard you stirring, and comed here to speak to you, glad to see a human face agen, if only a beast of a b’y like you—far them sperrits do make a chap feel quar all over! Besides, too, the fear o’ seeing the blamed thing agen, I thought the skipper, who was drinking awful arter Jan Steenbock left, he and Flinders having a regular go in at the rum, might have another fit o’ the horrors, and bust out on me with his revolver. Lor, I ’ave ’ad a night on it, I can tell you!”

“Poor fellow! wait and have a pan of coffee,” said I sympathisingly, pitying his condition and not minding his polite allusion to me as a ‘beast of a boy,’ which no doubt my manner provoked. “It will soon be ready.”

“I will,” he replied, thoroughly beaten and speaking to me civilly for the first time. “Thank ye, kindly, Cholly!”

By-and-by the crew turned out; and, after having their coffee, began again the same work they had been at the previous day of lightening the ship, Captain Snaggs superintending operations, and not looking a bit the worse for his drinking bout in which Morris Jones said he had spent the night with his kindred spirit, Mr Flinders.

The scene on the beach all that day and the next was a busy one, all hands hard at it unloading the Denver City, preparatory to our trying to restore her to her native element, the sea—which latter rippled up along her dry timbers forward, as far as the mizzen-chains, the furthest point where she was aground, with a lisping sound, it seemed to me, as if wooing her to come back and float on its bosom again once more, as of yore!

A great deal more had to be effected, however, before this could be accomplished, for a sort of dock, or trench, had to be dug out beneath the vessel’s keel, so as to bring the water beneath her and help to lift her off the sandbank where she was stranded; and this could not be done in a day, work we our hardest, despite the men taking shifts turn and turn about by watches at the task.

Fortunately, while unloading the cargo, a lot of pickaxes were found amongst the miscellaneous assortment of ‘notions’ stowed in the main-hold; and these now came in handy, the hands learning to wield them just as if they had been born navvies, after a bit, under the experienced direction of Captain Snaggs, who said he had been a Californian miner during a spell he had ashore at one period of his life.

On the third day of this labour, the dock was becoming perceptibly deep amidships and the water beginning to ooze through the sand; when, all at once, Tom Bullover, who was wielding a pick like the rest, struck the point of it against something which gave out a clear metallic ring.

After a dig or two more, he excavated the object, which, preserved in the lava that lay beneath the sand and shells on the beach, was found to be an image of the Virgin, such as you see in Roman Catholic countries abroad. It was of a bright yellow colour and shining, as if just turned out of a jeweller’s shop.

It was a golden Madonna!

Chapter Fourteen.

We Discover the Cave.

“What d’ye mean?” Captain Snaggs managed to stammer out after a bit, his long face perceptibly longer and his rubicund complexion turned to an ashy grey. He was conscience-stricken and thoroughly frightened at the second-mate thus bringing up again, as he thought, his cruel murder of the negro cook; for, Jan Steenbock spoke in the same tone of voice, and pointed his finger at him like an accusing judge, in almost the same precise way he had done on that eventful day when we were off Scilly, three months before. “What in thunder d’ye mean, man?—what d’ye mean?”

“I vas mean vat I zays,” answered the other calmly: “ze dreazure of ze boocaneer vas shtain mit ze bloot of von schlave.”

“Oh,” exclaimed the skipper, somewhat relieved by his not mentioning again Sam Jedfoot’s name, as he and all of us believed the second-mate intended doing, imagining his remark to refer to none other than the poor darkey. “I don’t kinder foller ye, mister, nohow, an it strikes me, it dew, ez if ye air gettin’ sorter mixed up, same ez jest now! What d’ye mean a-talkin’ o’ durned nigger slaves an’ sichlike? Thaar ain’t none now, I reckon, under the Stars and Stripes this side, nor yit fur thet matter in the hull o’ the land, from Maine to Californy, sin’ the war busted up the great southern ‘institooshun,’ ez they call’d it in Virginny. Thaar ain’t no slaves, sirree, now, I guess, on this hyar free an’ almighty continent! What d’yer mean, hey?”

The men gave out another loud hooray at this stump speech, which the skipper, quite relieved of his fears anent any allusion to Sam Jedfoot, delivered with much unction, as if he were holding forth from a platform at election time, his billy-goat beard wagging while he threw his arms about in the excitement of his oratory.

Jan Steenbock, for the moment, seemed puzzled how to reply; for, he stood silently facing the other in the pause that ensued after he had finished his harangue.

At length, however, he spoke, the wild cheer of the hands spurring him up and giving an impulse to the slow current of his thoughts and words—the Dane not being prone, like Captain Snaggs, to talking for the mere pleasure of hearing his own voice.

“I vill egshblain vat I means,” he began, in his deliberate way, answering the skipper’s question, but speaking as if addressing all of us collectively, his deep tones getting deeper and increasing in volume as he proceeded, so that all could hear. “I vas shpeak vat I reat in ze book dat Cap’en Shackzon vas bringt mit him vrom Guayaquil in ze schgooners dat time. I vas likevise rec’lect vat I zees here ven we vas arrife, an’ Cap’en Shackzon’s vas murter’t, and ze mans vas kill ze ozers, and dere vas nuzzing but bloot and murter; vor, ze schgooners vas go down, mit only meinselfs dat vas eshgape mit mein lifes—and zo I zays to meinselfs, dere vas a curse on ze golt and ze dreazure of ze boocaneer vrom ze bloot of ze schlave dat vas murter’t!”

“Guess I don’t foller ye yet, mister,” said the skipper. “Who kil’t thet air darkey ye air a-talkin’ on, hey?”

“Ze boocaneer,” promptly replied Jan. “Dey vas burit ze schlave vere dey vas burit ze dreazure.”

“An’ what did the cusses dew thet fur?”

“It vas to make ze Sbaniards and ze ozer beebles not vor to dig oop ze dreasure, or vor to go vere it vas burit. Zey vas zink dat ze sbirit of ze black man vas harmt dem and vork mizcheef, ze zame as vas done to hims, bekos he vas murter’t vor ze dreazure. ‘Bloot vor bloot’ vas ze law of ze boocaneer, and dey vas zink dat ze black mans vas hab ze bloot of ze ozer mans dat coom vere his sbirit vas!”

“Oh, thet’s the yarn ye hev got holt on!” exclaimed Captain Snaggs, with a grin on his face, winking round to us. “Guess ye ain’t sich a durned fule ez ter swaller all thet bunkum, hey?”

“I doos belief it, vor it vas droo,” answered Jan Steenbock very impressively. “Oh, yase, I vas zee it meinselfs. It vas droo as droo!”

“Wa-al,” drawled out the skipper, with a snigger, which raised a sympathetic laugh from some of the men standing by, “thet beats ev’rythin’ I ever know’d, it dew! Jest ter think of a straight up-an’-down coon like ye, mister, with raal grit in ye, a-believin’ in sich a yarn ez thet!”

“I beliefs it, vor it vas droo,” repeated the Dane, in no way discomposed by the other’s ridicule. “I vas hab ze cause to beliefs!”

“What! Thet a durned nigger buried two hunder’ year ago, or thaarabouts, hez the power to kinder hurt airy a livin’ soul now?”

“I beliefs it,” returned Jan, doggedly; adding, much to the skipper’s discomfiture and banishing his merriment in a moment. “Dere vas sdrange zings habben zometimes. I vas hear ze mans zay dat ze ghost of ze cook dat you shoots vas hoont dees very sheeps!”

Captain Snaggs made no reply to this crushing rejoinder: but a sort of murmur of assent came from the others, while I caught Hiram’s voice saying, “Thet’s so; right enuff!”

“And zo, cap’en,” went on the Dane, perceiving that he had scored a point, and that the laugh was no longer against him, “I van hab nuzzing vor to do mit ze dreazure of ze boocaneer, and I vas hopes not vor to zee it a gains. It vas accurst, as I vas zay, vor ze boocaneer zemselves vas not able vor to vind it after zay vas burit it; and den, ven Cap’en Shackzon vinds it, he vas also murter’t, as the schlave vas, and his crew vas murter’t zemselves! Ze boocaneer dreazure vas accurst and bringt goot to no beebles. And zo, cap’en, I zays; zays I, let us not mindt it at all, mit its bat look, but go on vor to dig oot ze dock for ze sheep. We vas vaste ze time for nuzzin’, if we hoonts vor ze dreazure; and if we vinds it, we vas nevaire get no goot vrom it—nevaire, nozzing but bat!”

“Wa-all, thet’s good advice, anyhow,” said the skipper, thinking the palaver had lasted long enough. “Guess ye chaps bed better sot to work agen, ez Mister Steenbock sez. If we shu’d light on this air treesor, well enuff, but our fust job, I reckon, ’s to get the shep afloat agen; an’ we won’t do thet, ye bet, by standin’ hyar listenin’ to ghost yarns an’ sichlike! Now, ye jokers, let me see ye handlin’ them picks agen. P’r’aps ye’ll dig up another gold figger o’ two; who knows?”

This set all hands busy, the men excavating the sand and hard lava from under the bilge of the vessel with an alacrity they had not displayed before; and, each man putting his heart to the job, the broad trench in which they were working was soon dug down considerably deeper than the level of the sea. To prevent the encroach of this latter all the stuff taken out was thrown up alongside, forming a sort of steep embankment on either hand, so that the Denver City looked by-and-by as if she had run her head into a railroad cutting, the coffer-dam fixed across the beach, right under her keel, by the mizzen-chains, where the water just came up to, blocking the entrance to our dock effectually. The ship herself aided us in this respect, by settling down more in the sand there as it became loosened, and we only had to take care now that the slight rise and fall of the tide should not cause too great a leakage into the trench between the keel below and the upper strakes of her timbers above, at the height to which the dam reached; and, after a while, although a little water did trickle through the wall of sand and lava forming the side of the excavation towards the sea, there was not a sufficient quantity of it to interfere with the labour of digging to any material extent, nor to arrest our efforts.

The men, indeed, wielded their picks as if anxious to make up for the half-hour or so that had been wasted since Tom Bullover found the golden Madonna.

Nor did they content themselves merely with digging.

A keen watch was kept, in case something else might turn up, and every piece of hard substance disinterred was carefully scrutinised; but, alas! no more golden images or nuggets of the precious metal gladdened our eyes! Nothing came in view but sand and lava, lava and sand, varied occasionally by the sight of some fragment of half-fossilised tortoise-shell, or the chalky bones of cuttlefish and similar dÉbris of the deep, washed up by the sea, and buried a fathom deep and more amid the strata of the shore.

This was disappointing; still, the men comforted themselves with the reflection that they were really digging for something else beyond the mere chance of picking up stray finds, such as that of Tom, who was thought a right good fellow for declaring he didn’t consider the Madonna his own special property, but would sell the figure, and go shares with all, when they got the ship afloat again, and reached San Francisco. My friend the carpenter thus artfully ‘pointed his moral,’ in order to make us work the harder at the novel navvy work at which we were engaged—strange, at least, to us sailor-folk.

Of course, though, while toiling like this, digging and splashing about in the insidious water that percolated through the beach, and which gradually accumulated until it was now almost knee-deep in the bottom of the trench, we were by no means silent, for a lot of talk went on in reference to the buccaneers’ buried treasure that Jan Steenbock had spoken of. So, in spite of the second-mate’s warning as to the ‘curse’ which he declared was associated with the hidden hoard, and would attach itself to any one discovering or touching the same, I heard more than one of the men give expression to a resolve to hunt for Captain Jackson’s cave as soon as he should have an opportunity, when his spell of work was over, or, at all events, on the completion of the dock and the floating of the ship—a halcyon period most devoutly prayed for by all of us as we slaved at our unaccustomed task.

Amongst those who had thus made up their minds to go after the treasure was myself; and I got full of the subject, though keeping my own council the while, and not informing any one of my intention.

Presently, at ‘eight bells,’ the skipper told me I might leave off work in the trench, and go with Hiram on board the ship to prepare tea for the hands. Morris Jones was ordered to accompany us, at the same time, to get the captain’s dinner ready; for, although we were ashore on a desert island, our ordinary routine as to meals and other matters was adhered to as regularly as if we had been at sea—the only exception being that no particular watch was kept, and that we all turned in together of a night and out likewise in the morning without distinction, all at the same time. Throughout the day we worked at digging out the trench, or ‘dock’ as Jan Steenbock persisted in calling it, under the ship, in gangs, in similar fashion to the mode that had been employed when unloading her, so as to get the task accomplished as quickly as possible; and, to facilitate this, the hands were divided into two batches, each having a spell of navvy’s work and a rest off between whiles, turn and turn about.

“Thet wer a mighty rum yarn the Dutchman spun jest now, I guess,” observed Hiram, as soon as we had got on board and reached the galley, Morris Jones leaving us awhile to ourselves, and going aft to fetch the skipper’s grub out of the pantry, where it was stowed. “I’m jiggered if I ever heerd tell o’ sich a yarn afore!”

“Don’t you think it true?” I said. “Mr Steenbock isn’t given to cramming, from all I have seen of him.”

“No; he air a straight up-an’-down coon, I reckon,” replied Hiram, proceeding to cut off a piece of tobacco from a plug he produced from his pocket, and placing a ‘chaw’ in his jaw. “Still, b’y, jest think o’ buccaneer tree-sors, an’ all sorts o’ gold an’ silver a-waitin’ fur us to dig ’em up! Why, it beats Californy an’ all I’ve heerd tell o’ the diggin’ days, when thaar wer the first rush, an’ the folks ez got in time made their pile!”

“But you heard what he said of the spirit protecting the treasure,” I remarked, “Don’t you think he’s right about the curse hanging over it? I believe it would be unlucky to touch it.”

“B’y, thaar’s allars a cuss tied on to gold an’ greenbacks, sich ez we used ter hev a little time back,” said Hiram sententiously. “But, I reckon, the harm don’t lie in the durned stuff itself: it’s in the way some folks kinder handles it—thet’s whaar the pizen is! Guess I ain’t afeard o’ no cuss, once I comes across thet cave the Dutch mate wer a-speakin’ on!”

“And the ghost?”

“Oh, durn the sperrit, Cholly!” said he, with a laugh. “I ain’t afeard.”

“Recollect though, Hiram,” I remarked, in answer to this, “how frightened we all have been on board by Sam, and the way you were in only a couple of days ago, when you said you saw him again here.”

He looked serious again in a moment.

“Guess I don’t want ter run down thet air ghostess,” said he apologetically. “Fur I reckon a man can’t go agen a thin’ he sees right afore his eyes.”

“And how about the other one that Mr Steenbock spoke of?”

“Oh, thet’s different, Cholly. A chap ye sees a-sottin’ down an’ a-playin’ a banjo aint like a coon thet’s ben buried two or three hundred year, an’ thet no one hez seed, ez I knows on, fur Jan Steenbock never sed ez how he seed it hisself. No, b’y, I guess I’ll hev a hunt fur thet thaar tree-sor ez he spoke on, ez soon ez ever I hev the chance.”

“Suppose we go this evening, when we strike off work?” said I—“that is, Hiram, if you don’t mind my coming with you?”

“Nary a bit, Cholly,” he replied good-heartedly to this tentative question of mine; “glad to hev ye along o’ me, seeing as how we both hev ben a-prospectin’ the line o’ country already.”

“All right,” I exclaimed joyfully. “We’ll have a good hunt for the cave. I wouldn’t be surprised if we find it near the place where I saw the doves, by the pool between the hills over there.”

“Most like, b’y,” said he, bustling about the galley and going on with his culinary work; “but hyar comes the stooard. Don’t ye tell him nuthin’ o’ what we hev ben talkin’ on, or I guess the coon ’ll be wantin’ to jine company, an’ I don’t wants him, I doesn’t. He’s a won’erful slimy sort o’ cuss, an’ since he’s ben skeart by Sam Jedfoot’s ghostess he hez ben a durned sight too mealy-mouthed fur me!”

“I won’t speak a word to him,” said I. “He’s a queer sort of man, and I don’t like him either.”

The entrance of the Welshman thus stopped our further conversation; for, although Morris Jones seemed anxious to talk, Hiram only spoke in monosyllables, giving curt answers, so that the steward in, the end became silent too, busying himself in cooking the skipper’s dinner at one, fireplace, while the American attended to the men’s tea at the other—filling the copper with the proper ingredients, as mentioned before, and diligently stirring its contents till it boiled.

At ‘two bells,’ later on, in the first dog-watch, work was abandoned for the day, all hands coming aboard to have their tea, Tom Bullover amongst them.

“May I tell him?” I said to Hiram, when I saw the carpenter coming forward, after slinging himself over the bulwarks; “may I tell Tom where we are going, and ask him to come too?”

“I don’t mind, I guess,” replied Hiram—“the more the merrier!”

Tom was perfectly willing; and so, half an hour later, the three of us started on our expedition, getting over the side of the ship while the rest of the crew were still busy with their pannikins and beef and biscuit, so departing unobserved.

“Now we’re off, I guess,” said Hiram, when he had crossed over a plank that served for a bridge over the trench alongside, which was getting pretty deep by now. “Let us go straight fur thet buccaneers’ tree-sor, shepmates!”

“And here’s for the black man’s ghost as the second-mate spoke on,” replied Tom Bullover, with a grin. “I specs we’ll as soon find one as t’other!”

“Durned ef I kear,” said Hiram defiantly; “ghostess or no ghostess, I’m bound fur thet pile, I am, if we ken sorter light on it!”

“I only hope we will, I’m sure,” I chimed in, as the three of us made our way across the beach and then traversed the sterile lava plain, shaping a course for the cluster of trees between the hills, on the right of the bay, which I had first investigated.

The doves we found as tame as ever, coo-coo-cooing away with great unction on our approach, and beside the borders of the pool were a lot of tortoises crawling about; but, there was no cave near, concealed in the brushwood, although we searched through it all carefully—so we resumed our way up the hills.

As we ascended, the scenery became wilder and wilder, the trees increasing so greatly in size that some of the trunks of them, which apparently belonged to the oak species, were over four feet in diameter, growing, too, to a great height.

Nor was the scenery only wild.

About half a mile up a steep ravine, a drove of wild hogs rushed by us, nearly knocking Hiram down, he being in advance of the exploring party.

“Jehosophat, mate!” he exclaimed to Tom, laughing as he stumbled over him; “thaar’s y’r black man’s ghost, I guess.”

“Carry on,” replied Tom grinning; “we ain’t come to him yet. You just wait and see!”

Further up, we came to a beautiful plain of some extent between the hills, which had been at some former time planted for cultivation, for bananas, sweet potatoes, yucca palms, and many other sorts of tropical fruits were growing about in the wildest profusion.

There were the remains, too, of old buildings and broken mill machinery, such as used in the West Indies for crushing the sugar cane, a lot of which was planted in the vicinity; but these were of giant proportions from not having been cut possibly for years, for, stump sprang up on top of stump, until the root clusters covered many square yards—the canes themselves being over twenty-five feet in height and more than fifteen inches in circumference, of a size that would have made a sugar-planter’s mouth water.

“Guess some cuss hez ben a-cultivatin’ hyar,” observed Hiram, looking critically round. “When I wer to hum down Chicopee way—”

“Stow that, bo,” said Tom Bullover, interrupting him, being always afraid of letting the other sail off on the tack of his home recollections, as he was doomed ever to hear the same old yarn, so that he was sick of its repetition. “I don’t think you’ll find your cave here; them old buccaneers wouldn’t be sich fools to lug all their booty up this long way, when they could bury it more comf’able near the shore, and likewise come upon it the easier again when they wanted it.”

“Specs ye air about right, bo,” answered Hiram, taking the interruption kindly, and no ways hurt at having his Chicopee remembrances once more nipped in the bud. “What shall we dew?”

“Why, go down again,” replied Tom. “Here’s a fresh track down to the beach on this side which leads to another bay, I fancy. Let’s make for it and see where it leads to.”

“Fire away; I’m arter ye, bo,” said the other, the two now changing places, and Tom Bullover showing the way. “‘Foller my leader’—thet’s the game, I reckon!”

All of us laughed at this, stepping gingerly in single file after Tom, who found some difficulty at first in pushing through the branches of the trees, which were thickly interwoven overhead and across the path; but the latter was distinctly marked out, being well trodden as if it had been a regular pathway of communication at some previous time.

The bay below, to which this road led, was on the other side of the point of land that stretched past the ship; and as we descended the hill we could see the blue sea peeping through the trees.

Half-way down, the pathway abruptly terminated in front of what seemed a mound of earth, although this was now overgrown with trees, covered with orchilla weed, that enveloped their trunks and gave them quite a venerable aspect.

“Hillo!” cried Hiram, “hyar’s enuff o’ thet orchilla weed thet they vall’ys so in ’Frisco to make airy a nan’s fortin’ ez could carry it thaar, I guess!”

“Is that the orchilla?” I asked. “I was wondering what Mr Steenbock meant when he spoke of it.”

“Aye,” replied Hiram, dragging off a great bunch of it from what looked like the decayed trunk of one of the oak trees, hollowed out by age and exposure to the heavy tropical rains of the region, “thet’s what they calls the orchilla weed, I guess. Hillo! though, what’s this?”

“What?” exclaimed Tom Bullover and I, pressing up to where he was stooping, scraping away at the timber; “what is it?”

“I’m durned ef it air a tree at all,” said Hiram, all excitement, and his voice thick with emotion and eager exultation. “It’s a door o’ some sort or t’other.”

“Really,” I said, as eager as he, helping him to pull away the fungus growth from the now partly-exposed woodwork which, certainly, looked like a door, as he said, “do you think so?”

“Aye, Cholly. I’m jiggered if we ain’t found the cave at last!”

Chapter Fifteen.

Rival Apparitions.

“By Jingo!” said Tom, with a deep breath, bending down and helping Hiram to clear away the weeds and dÉbris from the rotten old door, now clearly disclosed to view. “Jest fancy our lighting on it like this!”

“Perhaps it isn’t a cave at all,” said I, likewise breathless with excitement, but not wishing to place my hopes too high, lest I should be disappointed; “it’s too far from the sea, I think.”

“Nary a bit,” retorted Hiram, doggedly. “I’ll bet my bottom dollar it’s the place sure enuff. Hyar goes, anyhow, fur a try.”

So saying, rising from his stooping posture, he administered a thumping kick with his heavy seamen’s boot against the rotten woodwork.

This instantly gave way, a thick cloud of dust rolling up; and then, a hollow dark cavity appeared right in the centre of the mound, which we could now see was heaped up over the wooden framework, so as to conceal it from the notice of any one passing by.

“Hooray!” shouted Tom Bullover, waving his hat and jumping up in the air to further express his emotion. “We’ve found the buccaneers’ blessed treasure. Look out for the ghost, Hiram!”

“Durn the ghost!” retorted the other; “not twenty on ’em wu’d kep me back now, I guess!”

At the same moment, he made a dive to enter the opening, but Tom put his hand on his shoulder and half pulled him back.

“Stop, bo,” he said. “There might be foul air in it, ’cause of its being so long closed up. Let’s wait and see.”

“How ken ye tell thet?” asked Hiram; “guess it don’t matter a red cent if ther air.”

“You just wait,” insisted Tom. “I’ll find out in a jiffey; and then, if it’s safe, we can venture in. The cave ain’t a-goin’ to run away from us, and you know the old saying, ‘more haste less speed!’ We’re going to do things in proper shipshape fashion, bo, so none o your rushing matters; it’ll all come right in time!”

With these words, Tom, who was a sensible, matter-of-fact fellow, with his head screwed on straight and all his wits about him, took out a box of matches from the inside lining of his hat, where he always kept his pipe and tobacco and such things that he did not wish to get wet; and, lighting one of the matches, he proceeded to hold it within the dark cavity.

The flame flickered and then suddenly went out, although there wasn’t a breath of air stirring, the trees around preventing the sea-breeze from reaching the spot where we stood—a sort of little hollow between the hills.

“There you are, bo,” said Tom; “see that?”

“Guess I don’t underconstubble,” answered Hiram, staring at him in perplexity. “What d’ye mean, hey?”

“Didn’t you watch the match go out?” returned Tom. “Lord, I never did see such a feller!”

“Wa-al, what ef the durned match did fiz out?”

“Don’t yer know what it means?”

“Guess not.”

“It shows as how there’s foul air there, bo—that’s what the match’s going out means. It tells us not to go in!”

Tom said this with a chuckle, for which Hiram gave him a dig in the ribs.

“Hev yer own way, Chips, fur a bit,” he said; “but I’m jiggered if ye air a-going to kep me from prospectin’ thet thaar hole.”

“Nobody wants to,” retorted Tom. “Only just wait a bit till the wentilation gets better and blows out all the gas. It would a-pizened you if I’d let you go in at first, as you wanted.”

“Wa-al, go ahead, an’ hev another try fur to see ef it’s right now.”

In reply, Tom lit a second match, and held it in the opening of the cave as before.

This time it did not flicker so much, burning for a longer time, before the faint flame finally expired.

“Better,” said Tom; “but it ain’t quite safe yet.”

“Hurry up,” replied Hiram. “I’m bustin’ to see thet boocaneer tree-sor ez the mate wer talkin’ on!”

After an interval of another quarter of an hour or so, while we all waited on the tenter-hooks of suspense, an inquisitive land tortoise waddling up to see what we were about, Tom lit a third match.

This time it burnt bravely with a clear light, which showed us something of the interior of the cavern. It did not show us much, though, the darkness being too great for such a feeble illuminant to penetrate far into it.

“Now, boys,” said Tom, “I think we may venture in, as the foul air must be pretty well spent by this time; but we’ll have to get a torch or something to see our way by, or else we shall be breaking our necks or smashing our heads against the roof.”

“Guess one o’ them port fires we hev aboard would lighten it up to rights.”

“So it would,” replied Tom; “but we ain’t got it now, and must try and find somethin’ else to make a flare up.”

“Hyar’s some o’ the old wood,” observed the other, taking up a fragment of the broken door, which was crumbly with age. “Strike another match, will ye. I think this timber ’ll burn long enuff fur us to git inside an’ prospect a few.”

“Right you are, my hearty,” returned the other, carrying out this suggestion; and the next minute, the piece of old oak was in a blaze, when, holding it up in one hand, Hiram stooped down once more and stepped within the cave.

There was nothing there, however.

Nothing!

“Wa-all,” exclaimed Hiram, after bending here and there, and searching in every direction. “I calls this a durned sell, I dew!”

“Hold the light up again,” said Tom; “a little more to the right, bo, so as to throw it on that dark corner there.”

But nothing was to be seen save the rocky walls of the cave, which was of peculiar shape, and more like a sort of fissure in the rock, riven open possibly by some volcanic shock, than if made by man. The roof was formed of lava, it seemed to me by the light of our impromptu torch, similar to the same substance we noticed on the arid plain near the shore of the bay, and again below the sand at high-water mark.

There were queer fragments of rock also, placed round the hard floor of the cavern like seats, with regular intervals between them; while apparently in the middle, as near as we could approximate, was a raised portion of the under stratum of rock shaped like a pulpit.

“Guess if thaar’s airy tree-sor hyar, b’ys,” observed Hiram, pointing to this, “it’s thaar!”

“No, bo,” replied Tom, laughing, “that’s the black man’s pulpit, where he preaches a Sunday, same as our ‘Holy Joes’ do when they’re ashore!”

Hiram paid no attention to this remark, but continued poking about the place, stamping with his feet and trying in every way to see whether the treasure we were in search of might not be buried in some spot or other; but his trouble was all in vain.

Presently, the piece of blazing wood began to give forth a more feeble light, being almost burnt out; and, then, all at once Hiram and I noticed another spark of light like a round hole, at the opposite end of the cave.

“Hillo!” shouted Hiram, “I guess thaar’s another end to the durned hole, an’ we hev taken the wrong track!”

Making our way slowly, so as not to extinguish the torch, we advanced in the direction of the new light, which got bigger and bigger as we approached nearer to it.

There was no doubt it was another entrance to the cave, and a far more convenient one, too, for it opened out on to a little spur of the hill that ran down a somewhat steep declivity to the seashore below.

“It must be the buccaneers’ cave,” said Tom. “It’s just the sort o’ place men that were sailors would choose. I misdoubted it at first, from being so far inland, as I thought; but now I see it’s near the sea.”

“But there ain’t nary a tree-sor thaar!”

“Don’t you be too cocksure o’ that,” returned Tom, looking about him well, to make certain of his direction. “Howsomdever, we ain’t got the time to search the place properly now, as it’ll be dark soon, and we ought to be aboard.”

“Durned if I likes givin’ it up like this.”

“Never mind, bo; there’ll be plenty of time for us to look the cave over to-morrer arternoon, and I’ll bring one o’ them port fires you spoke on to light up the place.”

“Guess thet’ll jest about do, Chips,” replied Hiram, turning round, as if about to go back within the entrance, loth to leave without finding the buccaneers’ hoard, repeating his previous exclamation: “I’m durned, though, if I likes givin’ it up like this!”

“Come along, my hearty!” cried Tom. “Come along, Charley. But, mind, neither on you be telling the hands what we’ve found out! There wouldn’t be a chance for us if the skipper or that drunken cur Flinders knowed on it.”

“Not me,” replied Hiram, following Tom along the curve of the shore towards a little group of trees, which I recognised now as immediately above the pool frequented by the doves. “I won’t tell nary a soul, an’ I reckon we ken both on us anser fur Cholly?”

“Certainly,” said I, replying to his implied question, as I came up behind the two, and we started off retracing our way at once to the ship, on the fo’c’s’le of which we could see several of the men already gathered together. “I’m sure I won’t tell anybody, for I have nobody to tell except you, Tom, and Hiram—you’re my only friends on board.”

“Wait till you get hold of the buccaneers’ gold, Charley,” said Tom dryly. “You’ll get plenty o’ chums then, for money makes friends!”

Nothing further was said by either of us, and we presently found ourselves once more on board, when I turned in at once, for we had walked a goodish distance, and I was tired out.

The next afternoon, when work was ended and Hiram and I were ready to start on another excursion to the cave, we could not find Tom.

“Nary mind thet, Cholly,” said Hiram. “I guess we ken go ’long, an’ Chips ’ll pick us up by-an’-by.”

Passing the grove and pool of the doves, we made our way over the brow of the little hill beyond, and sighted the second bay; when, just as the opening to the cave became visible, both of us heard the familiar sound of Sam Jedfoot’s banjo.

It was passing strange!

The same old air was being played upon it that we had heard immediately before the ship struck—and, indeed, almost always prior to every catastrophe and mischance that had happened throughout our eventful voyage.

Hiram turned pale.

“Jee-rusalem, Cholly!” he exclaimed, at once arresting his footsteps; “what on airth air thet?”

I was almost equally frightened.

“It—it—it—sounds like poor Sam’s banjo,” I stammered out. “I—I—hope he ha—ha—hasn’t come to haunt us again!”

“Seems like,” said he; and then, plucking up his courage, he started once more for the mouth of the cave, I following close, like his shadow, afraid to leave him now, because then I would be there by myself. “Durned, though, if Sam’s ghostess or any other cuss ’ll kep me back now. Come on, Cholly!”

But, when we got up to the entrance, we saw a sight that stopped us at once, Hiram dropping to the ground as if he had been shot.

There, sitting on the very rock at the back which Tom Bullover had joked about on the previous day as being the ‘ghost’s pulpit’ was the dim apparition of a man, the very image of our whilom negro cook, leaning back and playing the banjo, just as Sam used to do on board the Denver City.

But, stranger still, even as I looked, a queer supernatural sort of light suddenly illumined the interior of the cavern, and I saw another apparition rise, as it were, out of the darkness, immediately behind the one on the rock, the last spectral form raising its hand threateningly.

I stood there at the mouth of the cave, almost paralysed with terror, watching the weird scene that was being enacted within, the wonderful electrical glare making every detail come out in strong relief and lighting up the whole place, so that it was as bright as day.

Not the slightest incident escaped my notice.

As the second apparition rose from behind the rock at the back of the cavern, the first figure, which I had believed up to now really to be the negro cook’s ghost or spirit, permitted for some occult purpose or other to revisit the earth, also jumped up out of the corner, dropping the banjo incontinently.

Not only this, the original ghost, spirit, or what you will, displayed an abject fright that was too real for any inhabitant of the other world to assume; for the face of the ghost in an instant grew as long as my arm, while its woolly hair crinkled up on top of its head until it became erect and stiff as a wire brush.

At the same time, the eyes of this first ‘ghost,’ distended with fear, rolled round and round, the white eyeballs contrasting with the darker skin of the face, which, however, appeared to have become of an ashy grey colour, instead of black—though whether this was from the effects of fear or owing to the peculiar light that shone full upon it I could not tell, nor, indeed, puzzled my mind at the time to inquire.

The two figures thus confronted each other for about the space of a second, the headless apparition rising and rising till it seemed to touch the roof of the cave, when it extended its wide arms and made a clutch at the other, and now trembling, figure in front.

This was too much for the banjo-playing spectre.

Uttering a wild yell that only a human throat could have emitted, and with his mouth open as wide as the mouth of the cave towards which he rushed, Sam Jedfoot—for it was his own substantial self, I saw, and no ghost at all, as I was now convinced—cleared in two bounds the intervening space that lay between him and the entrance to the cavern, seeking to get away as far as possible from his terrible visitant. Apparently, he must have thought the other to be the ‘genuine Simon Pure,’ come to punish him for his false pretences in making believe to be a denizen of the spirit world whilst he was yet in the flesh, and so poaching unlawfully on what was by right and title the proper domain of the ghostal tribe!

In his hurry and haste, however, to avoid this avenging spectre, poor Sam, naturally, did not see me standing in front of the cave blocking the entrance, nor had I time to get out of his way, so as to avoid the impetuous rush he made for the opening.

The consequences may be readily surmised.

He came against me full butt, and we both tumbled to the ground headlong together all of a heap.

Sam thereupon imagined the terrible apparition to be clutching him, and that his last hour had come.

“Oh, golly! De debbel’s got me, de debbel’s got me fo’ suah!” he roared out in an agony of terror, clawing at my clothes and nearly tearing the shirt off my back in his attempts to regain his feet, as we rolled over and over together down the decline towards the shore. “Lor’, a mussy! Do forgib me dis time, Massa Duppy, fo’ play-actin’ at ghostesses, an’ I promises nebber do so no moah! O Lor’! O Lor’! I’se a gone niggah! Bress de Lor’, fo’ ebbah an’ ebbah! Amen!”

Chapter Seventeen.

Mr Flinders in a Fix.

Before relating what next occurred, however, I must break off at this point and make a slight bend in my yarn here, in order to mention something that happened immediately before, and which, although I did not come to hear of it until afterwards, had to do with bringing the skipper so suddenly down upon us. Something, indeed, that tended to infuriate him all the more, with Tom Bullover and Sam; for, from his hearing, by their own confession, that they had planned and kept up the delusion about the cook’s ghost on purpose to deceive him, he was led to believe that these two had got the better of him in another matter, even more important still in his estimation.

And so, as I am only a youngster and a poor hand at telling a story, though I find somehow or other I’m getting to the end of my yarn sooner than I expected when I first set to work writing it, I think I had best pat down everything that happened in its proper place and order, ‘in regular shipshape Bristol fashion,’ so that no hitch may occur by-and-by that might ‘bring me up with a round turn,’ when, perhaps, I could sail on with a free sheet and a fair wind to what you landfolk and longshoremen would call my ‘dÉnouement’—a sad one, though, it be, as you’ll learn later on, all in good time, as I spin my yarn in my free and easy way!

Well, to go back a bit now, you must know that ever since the thrashing he got from our second-mate, Mr Flinders had kept himself very quiet; not interfering in any way with the work of dismantling and unloading the ship, but leaving the charge of all this in the hands of Jan Steenbock and Tom Bullover—under, of course, the immediate supervision of Captain Snaggs, who, was here, there, and everywhere, pretending to do an awful lot, although really only occupying his time when he wasn’t drinking in bullying those of the men, who being tame-spirited, put up with his bad language.

It must be said, though, for the skipper, that he generally left the old hands alone, for they returned his choicest epithets in kind, always giving him quite as good in the rude vernacular as he gave—discipline being rather slack now the vessel was ashore, as in the merchant service a wreck is supposed by the crew to dissolve all contracts and annul whatever articles may have been signed. Such, at least, is my experience of the sea.

During this interregnum of duty, the first-mate hardly ever left his bunk on board the ship save to go into the cabin and partake of what meals Morris Jones, the steward, provided him with just when that lazy beggar of a Welshman liked.

Here he remained for over a week, nursing his damaged eyes and general injuries and, no doubt, brooding over the revenge which he contemplated taking at some future period on his late successful antagonist; for, his jealousy had been keenly aroused by the marked partiality Captain Snaggs had shown in favour of Jan Steenbock, although previously he had always chummed with him—and, indeed, even now, in spite of all that had passed, the captain still occasionally invited him to a friendly orgy in the cabin, when both, as usual, of course, got royally drunk together as of yore!

But, since the finding of the golden Madonna and the development of the treasure-hunting craze amongst us, Mr Flinders had begun to come out from his temporary obscurity, while not at first actually pushing himself forward, or taking any prominent part in our daily routine.

This modest diffidence was due to the fact that the men used to make audible remarks in reference to his ‘lovely black eyes,’ but as soon as the tint of these gradually merged from green to yellow and then buck to their normal tone, the first-mate grew bumptious and endeavoured to resume his old position of chief officer in the absence of the skipper, when the latter frequently went off alone, as it was his habit now, in solitary search of the buccaneers’ buried hoard like all the rest of us—notwithstanding that in public he utterly pooh-poohed its problematical existence and urged on the crew in digging out the dock under the ship, so as to get her afloat again, the only good, as he said, that we could expect from the island being the hope of leaving it behind us as quickly as possible.

He was an artful hand, was Captain Snaggs!

He thought that if he dissuaded the men from looking for the treasure he might have the greater chance of coming across it himself.

Such being the case, the skipper would sometimes sneak off in the middle of the day when work used to grow rather slack at our excavating task, in consequence of the greater heat at that time; for, the sea-breeze which we used to have with us from the early morning then gradually died away, while the light airs that blew off the land during the afternoon and night-time did not usually spring up until nearly sunset.

Then it was that Mr Flinders saw his opportunity; and, as regularly as the skipper would disappear in the distance over the lava field fronting the beach, saying, as he always did, that he was going up the cliff on our port hand ‘to see if he could sight any passing vessel’—although the sharpest eyes amongst our lookouts had never yet seen the captain’s lean and angular form on top of the said cliff—so, regularly, did the first-mate stealthily descend the side ladder that led from the poop of the ship down to the beach.

Once arrived here, his delight was to overlook the men as they lazily dug out the concrete-like sand and shingle at the bottom of the trench, filling baskets with the dÉbris below which their fellows above hoisted up none the more energetically; and the first-mate could not help noticing that while Jan Steenbock purred them on now and then for a brief spell, he let them, as a rule, take things easily; at this heated period of the day, for Jan was wise enough to see that by not overworking them then he got more labour out of his gang when the temperature grew cooler, and the men could dig with greater “go.”

For a while, Mr Flinders did not interfere with Jan’s method of procedure, seeing, as any sensible man would, that the second-mate’s plan answered its purpose of getting the most out of the hands without making them grumble unduly at their unwonted task; but, soon his love of carping at others asserted itself, and this feeling, coupled with the desire to assert such petty authority as he still had, overcame his sense of prudence, as well as all recollection of the sharp lesson he had received from Jan not so very long before.

The difference between the skipper and Mr Flinders was, that, although the former was essentially cruel and a bully of the first water, he was yet physically brave and a cute, cautious man, who, when sober, knew how far he might venture in his harsh treatment of those under him; while the first-mate, on the contrary, was an utter coward at heart, and of as malicious and spiteful a disposition as he was fond of tyrannising over such as he thought he could ill-treat with impunity.

It never takes long for sailors to ‘reckon up’ their officers; so, it need hardly be said to which of the two the hands paid the most attention when he gave an order. As to liking either, that was out of the case; but where the men feared Captain Snaggs, the only feeling they had for Mr Flinders was one of contempt—paying back all his snarlings and bullyings in a way that the hands, well knew how to drive home to one of his temperament, as sensitive as it was mean!

Consequently, when, after a bit, he commenced finding fault with this one and that, the men would shove their tongues in their cheek and shrug their shoulders. They did not pay the slightest regard to anything he said; while the more bolder spirits, perhaps, of the stamp of Jim Chowder, winked openly the one to the other, expressing an opinion in a sufficiently loud enough tone for him to hear that ‘if he didn’t look out,’ he would soon become possessed of a pair of eyes “blacker than he’d had afore!”

Then, naturally, there would be a snigger all round, when Mr Flinders had to turn away with a scowl on his unpleasant, cross-grained face. He hated Jan Steenbock all the more, because when the jeering crew displayed their insubordination more strongly than usual, Jan would very properly recall them to their duty—an order which on being given by the second-mate was promptly obeyed, whilst they utterly disregarded even the most trivial command from him, just as they mocked at his reprimands.

This was only noticeable at first, though; for, after a few days’ experience of this ‘playing second fiddle,’ Mr Flinders, waxing stronger as his injuries improved and the discoloration of his ‘lovely black eyes’ became less apparent, seemed to resolve on trying a fresh tack. Taking higher ground, instead of idly endeavouring to get the men to treat him with respect, he once more tackled his subordinate superior Jan, who, he thought, from his treating him civilly, was sorry for the ‘little misunderstanding’ that had occurred between them, and would readily ‘knuckle under’ now, the moment he assumed his legitimate rÔle and ‘topped the officer’ over him.

Mr Flinders never made a greater mistake in his life than in thus attempting to act up to the axiom of the old Latin adage, which teaches us that “necessity makes even cowards brave.”

He had far better have remained content with his titular dignity; for, in seeking to resume the reins of power which he had once let fall, he only received another lesson from Jan Steenbock, teaching him that a placid man was not necessarily one who would quietly put up with insult and rough treatment, and proving that the tables of life are frequently turned in fact as they sometimes are in figure of speech!

This is a long palaver; but I will soon come to the point of it all, and tell what subsequently happened.

You must recollect, though, that I was not on the spot myself, and am only indebted to Jim Chowder for hearing of it—being indeed, at that very time, on my way with Hiram to the cave and the wonderful surprise that awaited us there, an account of which I have just related.

Hiram and I had not long left the shore, said Jim, when the mate, who had his dinner rather late that day, on account of having been up with the skipper drinking all through the previous night, came down the ship’s side, looking very seedy and ill-tempered from the effects of his carouse, and with his face all blotchy and his nose red.

He had already been swearing at the steward for keeping him waiting for his grub, and this appeared to have ‘got his hand in,’ for he had no sooner come up to where Jan Steenbock was at work with the port watch digging in the trench, the second-mate setting the men a good example by wielding a pick as manfully as the best of them, than Mr Flinders began at Jan in his old abusive fashion, such as all on board the ship had been familiar with before the wreck and prior to his thrashing, which certainly had quieted him down for a time.

“Ye durned lop-handled coon!” cried out the cantankerous bully, looking down on Jan from the top of the plank that crossed the trench, and served as a sort of gangway between the foot of the side ladder and the firm ground beyond the excavation. “Why don’t ye put yer back into it? Ye’re a nice sort o’ skallywag to hev charge of a gang—ye’re only a-playin’ at workin’, ye an’ the hull pack on yer; fur the durned dock ain’t nary a sight deeper than it wer at four bells yester arternoon, I reckon!”

Jan Steenbock was in no wise disturbed by this exordium.

Dropping his pick, he looked up at the mate; while the rest of the men likewise stopped working, waiting to see what would happen, and grinning and nudging each other.

“Mine goot mans,” said he in his deep voice, with unruffled composure, “vas you sbeak to mees?”

Mr Flinders jumped up and down on the plank gangway, making it sway to and fro with his excitement.

“Vas I sbeak to ye?” he screamed, mimicking in his shrill treble the Dane’s pronunciation. “Who else sh’ud I speak to, ye Dutch son of a gun? Stir yer stumps, d’ye haar, an’ let us see ye airnin’ yer keep, ye lazy hound!”

“Mistaire Vlinders!”

“Aye, thet’s me; I’m glad ye reck’lect I’ve a handle to my name.”

“Mistaire Vlinders,” repeated Jan, paying no attention to the other’s interruption. “If you vas sbeak to me, you vas best be zee-vil.”

“What d’ye mean?” cried the mate. “Durn yer imperence; what d’ye mean?”

“I mean vat I zays,” returned Jan; “and eef you vas not zee-vil, I vas make yous.”

“Make me!” shouted out Mr Flinders, dancing with rage on the plank, so that it swung about more than ever. “Make me, hey? I’d like to see ye, my hearty!”

But, while the plank was yet oscillating beneath his feet, one of the men in the trench below, by a dexterous drive of his pick, loosened the earth on the side of the excavation; and, hardly had Mr Flinders got out his defiant words than he and the plank on which he was standing came tumbling down, the bully going plump into the pool of water that had accumulated at the open end of the trench forming a little lake over four feet deep.

Of course, the hands all shouted with laughter, their mirth growing all the merrier when the mate presently emerged from his impromptu bath, all dripping and plastered over with mud.

He was in a terrible rage, Jim Chowder said; and as Jan Steenbock came up to help him, he aimed a blow at him with a spade which he clutched hold of from one of the hands, almost splitting Jan’s head open, for the thick felt hat he wore only saved his life.

“Thaar, ye durned Dutch dog!” he yelled out. “Take thet fur yer sass!”

Jan fell to the bottom of the trench; whereupon, the men, thinking Mr Flinders had murdered him, at once rushed upon the mate in a body, thrusting him backwards into the water again and rolling him over in the mud and refuse, until he was pretty well battered about and nearly drowned.

Indeed, he would, probably, have been settled altogether, but for Jan rising up, little the worse for the blow that he had received, saving that some blood was trickling down his face.

“Shtop, my mans, shtop!” he exclaimed. “Let hims get oop, he vas not hoort me, aftaire all; and I vas vorgif hims, vor he vas not know vat he vas do!”

But the hands were too much incensed to let the bully off so easily, for they hated him as much as they liked Jan and were indignant at the unprovoked assault Mr Flinders had made upon him. As luck would have it, while they were debating how they should pay him out properly, and whether to give him another ducking in the muddy water or no, a happy means presented itself to them for punishing him in a much more ignominious manner, and one which was as original as it was amusing.

The big tortoises that inhabited the island used to come backwards and forwards past the beach on their passage up to the hills, utterly regardless of the ship and the men working, especially towards the evening, as now; and just as the fracas happened, one of these huge creatures waddled by the trench, making for its usual course inland.

“Hullo, mates!” sung out the leading wag of the crew, “let’s give our friend a ride for to dry hisself; here’s a cock hoss handy!”

This was thought a capital lark; and, the suggestion being acted upon immediately, the tortoise was summarily arrested in its onward career and Mr Flinders lashed across its shelly back, like Mazeppa was strapped upon the desert steed—the hands all roaring with laughter, Jim said, while the mate struggled in vain with his captors and the giant tortoise hissed its objections at the liberty taken with it in thus converting it into a beast of burden without leave or license!

It must have been a comical sight according to Jim Chowder’s account.

Even Jan Steenbock, he said, could not help grinning; for, although Mr Flinders screamed and yelled as if he were being murdered, Jan saw that the men were not really hurting him, and he thought there was no call for his interference, especially after the manner in which the mate had acted towards him previously—indeed, all along, arrant bully that he was.

Consequently, he let matters take their course, his smile breaking into the general laugh that arose presently when, one of the men giving the tortoise a dig with his boot as soon as the mate was securely mounted, the unwieldy reptile waddled off into the bush with Mr Flinders, bawling, spread-eagled on its back and brandishing his arms and legs about, trying to free himself from his lashings.

“Durn ye all for a pack o’ cowards, ten ag’in one!” screamed out the mate as he was lost to sight in the cactus grove, the prickles from which no doubt tore his legs, thus heightening the unpleasantness of his situation. “I’ll pay ye out for this, ye scallywags, I will, by thunder, when I get loose.”

“All right,” shouted back the men between their bursts of laughter as he disappeared from view, howling and shrieking and swearing away to the end; the tortoise plodding on regardless of his struggles, which, indeed, accelerated its pace onwards to its retreat in the hills. “You can carry on, old flick, when you finds yourself free!”

And, then, they raised one of their old sailor choruses with much spirit—

“Oh, he’ll never come back no more, boys,
He’ll never come back no more;
For he’s sailed away to Botany Bay,
And ’ll never come back no more!”

While they were in the middle of this—Jim Chowder singing the solo of the shanty, and the others joining in with full lung power in the refrain—who should appear from the opposite direction to that in which the mate had disappeared on his strange steed, but, Captain Snaggs!

The skipper looked very strange and excited.

“Hillo, my jokers!” he exclaimed as soon as he got near enough to hail the men, “whaar’s Mister Flinders? I wants him at oncest.”

Chapter Eighteen.

“Skeleton Valley.”

“This wer a reg’ler sockdollager!” said Jim Chowder, when narrating the circumstances to us; for on this unexpected enquiry after the mate coming so suddenly after the men had treated him in so ignominious a fashion, they were “knocked all aback!”

So, for the moment, no one answered the skipper’s question.

Of course, this did not tend to allay his excitement. “Can’t nary a one o’ ye speak?” he cried angrily. “Whaar’s the fust-mate—ye ain’t made away with the coon, hev ye?”

“He’s out fur a ride, cap,” at last said the wag of the party, whereat there was another outburst of laughter. “Mr Flinders wer a bit out o’ sorts an’ hez gone up theer fur a hairin’.”

“Thaar!” echoed the skipper, looking to where the man pointed with his hand. “Whaar?”

“Up in the hills,” replied the other grinning hugely at Captain Snaggs’ puzzled expression. “He’s gone fur a ride a-tortoise-back.”

“Ye’re a durned fule!” shouted the skipper, thinking he was ‘taking a rise’ out of him. “Don’t ye try on bamboozlin’ me. What d’ye mean by his goin’ a-ridin’, an’ sich nonsense?”

“He vas shbeak ze drooth, cap’en,” put in Jan Steenbock, who was still wiping the blood from his face as he got up to answer him. “I vas zee Mistaire Vlinders zail avays oop dere on ze back of von beeg toordle joost now.”

“By thunder, ye’re all makin’ game of me, I guess!” yelled the skipper, seeing that Jan was grinning like the rest, “I s’pose ye’ve been hevin’ a muss ag’en. Now, I ain’t a-goin’ to stand no more bunkum. What hev ye done with Mr Flinders, I axes fur the last time?”

“I vas not do nuzzin,” replied Jan quietly, continuing to wipe his face. “Ze mate vas shtrike me, but I vas not touch him meinselfs, I vas not lay von hand upon hims.”

“Then what in thunder air becom’ of him?”

“He wer gone a-ridin’, cap,” said the man who had previously spoken, proceeding to explain what had occurred. “He came down drunk out of the ship and went abusin’ Mr Steenbock as never sed a word to him, and then struck him with a spade, nigh killing him. So we tumbles him over in the water theer to stop his doin’ any more mischief, for he wer that mad as he looked to murder the lot of us.”

“And then, boss,” went on Jim Chowder, as he told up, taking up the story, “ez he were pretty well wet with his ducking, we lashed him on to the back of a tortoise ez come by, an’ sent him up in the hills, fur to dry hisself, ‘ridin’ a cock horse to Banbury Cross’ like!”

At this the hands laughed again, and the skipper, whom they now surmised must have been drinking again when away on his prospecting tour, became perfectly furious; for he turned quite white, while his billy-goat beard bristled up, as it always did when he was angry.

“This air rank mutiny!” he shouted, drawing his revolver and pointing it at Jim Chowder; “but I’ll soon teach ye a lesson, ye skunks. Hyar goes fur one o’ ye!”

Jan Steenbock, as on a previous occasion, however, was too quick for him; for he knocked the weapon out of his fist, and then gripping him in a tight grasp, threw his arms round the captain’s body.

The skipper foamed at the mouth, and swore even worse than Mr Flinders had done just before; but, presently he calmed down a bit, and sat down on the ground—shaking all over, as soon as Jan had removed his grip, though keeping close to him, to be on the watch for his next move, as he expected him to have one of his old fits again.

But the convulsions seemed to pass off very quickly; and the captain, looking like himself again after a few moments, jumped to his feet.

He then stared round about him, as if searching for something or some one, evidently forgetting all that had just happened.

Suddenly his eyes brightened.

“Thaar he is!” he cried, “thaar he is!”

“Who, sir?” asked Jan, seeing his gaze fixed in the direction of the cactus grove, behind which the mate had vanished on his tortoise—“Mistaire Vlinders?”

“No, man, no,” impatiently cried the skipper; “I wanted him to come with me, but ez he’s not hyar, ye’ll do ez wa-all, I reckon. It’s the black buccaneer cap’en I mean, thet I met jest now, over thaar in the vall’y.”

“Ze boocaneer cap’en,” repeated Jan, utterly flabbergasted—“ze boocaneer cap’en?”

“Aye, ye durned fule; don’t ye reck’lect the coon ez ye told me ez burrit the treesure? Come on quick, or I guess we’ll lose him!”

“And yous have zeen hims?”

“Aye, I hev seed him, sure enuff,” replied Captain Snaggs, seizing Jan, and trying to drag him with him; “an’, what’s more, he an’ I’ve been drinkin’ together, me joker. We’ve hed a reg’ler high old time in the vall’y thaar, this arternoon, ye bet!”

“In ze valleys?”

“By thunder! ye’re that slow ye’d anger a saint, which I ain’t one,” returned Captain Snaggs, indignantly. “I mean the vall’y whaar the skeletons is crawlin’ about an’ the skulls grinning—thet air one belongin’ to the buccaneer cuss is a prime one, I ken tell ye. It beats creation, it dew, with the lizards a-creepin’ through the sockets, an’ a big snake in his teeth. Jeehosophat! how he did swaller down the licker!”

Up to now the men could not understand that anything out of the common was the matter with the skipper beyond being drunk, perhaps, and in a passion—no, not even Jan; but, as soon as he got talking on this tack about snakes and skulls, then all saw what was the matter.

So, now, on his darting off towards the hills in his delirium, Jan Steenbock and Jim Chowder, with a couple of the other hands, quickly followed in pursuit of the demented man.

He had got a good minute’s start, however, before they recovered from their astonishment at his incoherent speech and were able to grasp the situation; so, he was almost out of sight by the time they went after him.

It was a long chase, Jim said, for they went in and out between the thorny fleshy-handed cactus trees and over the lava field, tumbling into holes here and tearing themselves to pieces with the thorns there—the skipper all the while maintaining his lead in front and running along as freely and smoothly as if the track were an even path, instead of being through a desert waste like that they raced over.

After a bit, they passed over all the intervening lava field and struck amongst the grass and trees; and then they came up to Mr Flinders, who was still lashed on the back of his tortoise, which had ‘brought up all standing’ by the side of a little water-spring, and was greedily gulping down long draughts of the limpid stream that rippled through the glade beneath the shade of a number of dwarf oaks and zafrau trees which had orchilla moss growing in profusion on their trunks—some of these being nearly three feet in diameter, and bigger, Jim said, than any trees he had previously seen on the island.

Those in pursuit of the skipper thought he would have stopped on thus meeting the first-mate.

But, no. He did not halt for an instant.

“Come on, Flinders,” he only called out. “Come on, Flinders, we air arter the buccaneer cap’en an’ the treasure!”

Then, plunging down the side of the hill he made for a bare space further down beyond the trees, waving his arms over his head and shouting and screaming at the pitch of his voice, like the raging madman that he had become.

Arrived at the bottom of the declivity, the captain abruptly paused; and Jim Chowder and Jan, who were close behind, came up with him.

There was no need to stop him; for the skipper flung himself on the ground at a spot where, to their wonder, they now observed three skeletons sitting up and arranged in a circle; while in the centre of the terrible group of bony figures was a cask on end, whose odour at once betrayed its contents.

Rum!

A pannikin was on the ground beside the hand of one of the remnants of mortality, and this the skipper took up, drawing a spigot from out of the cask and filling it.

“Hyar’s to ye, my brave buccaneers!” he cried, tossing it off as if it had been water. “Hyar’s to ye all an’ the gold!”

He was going to fill another pannikin and drain that; but Jan Steenbock kicked over the cask, preventing him.

Captain Snaggs at once sprung to his feet again.

As before, he took no notice of Jan’s action.

It appeared as if his mind were suddenly bent on something else and that he now forgot everything anterior to the one thought that possessed him.

“Come on now, my brave buccaneers, an’ show us the gold,” he cried. “Lead on, my beauties, an’ I’ll foller, by thunder, to the devil himself!”

So saying, back he climbed up the hill, and down a little pathway along the top till he came to the entrance to the cave which Tom Bullover and Hiram and I had first discovered; and then, suddenly, before Jan Steenbock and Jim Chowder could see where he had gone, he disappeared within the opening.

Jan and Jim alone had continued the pursuit, the other hands having remained behind to release the first-mate from his uncomfortable billet on board the tortoise; and Jim Chowder giving up the hunt at this point, and returning to rejoin his comrades, Jan Steenbock only remained, the latter telling us later on, when we all compared notes, that, after looking for the skipper over the cliff, where he at first believed him to have fallen, he finally traced him into the cave.

Chapter Twenty.

The Judgment of Fate.

We were all speechless, and could see nothing as we scrambled to our feet in the darkness, for the cave was now filled with a thick dust, that nearly suffocated us as well as blinded us—filling our eyes, and mouths, and nostrils.

Presently, the dust settled down; and, then, we found that the cavern was no longer dark, for the crash which had so startled us at first was occasioned by a portion of the roof breaking away, which let in the daylight from above, right immediately over the big rock in the centre that Tom had called “the pulpit.”

The rock, however, had disappeared, and this was, doubtless, the mysterious body that had rushed by us through the mouth of the cave, so frightening Sam.

But something more surprising still had happened.

The earthquake, in rending the rock, had upheaved all the earth around it, and there, beneath, in a large cavity, was a collection of old oaken chests, bound round, apparently, with heavy clamps of iron, similar to those used by our forefathers a couple of centuries ago for the storage of their goods and chattels—boxes that could defy alike the ravages of age and the ordinary wear and tear of time, the carpenters and builders of bygone days making things to last, and not merely to sell, as in modern years!

“Hooray!” cried Hiram, springing towards one of the chests, which had been crushed open by a piece of detached rock from the roof of the cave, thus disclosing to view a lot of glittering ingots of gold, with a crucifix and some little images of the same precious metal, like the Madonna figure we had first discovered. “Hyar’s the boocaneer treesor, I guess, at last!”

“I vas mooch sorry,” said Jan Steenbock, shaking his head solemnly, as we gathered round the hole and eagerly inspected its contents, noticing that there were seven or eight of the large chests within the cavity, besides the broken one and a number of smaller ones, along with pieces of armour and a collection of old guns and pistols, all heaped up together. “I vas mooch sorry. It vas bringt us bat look, like it did to ze schgooners, and Cap’en Shackzon, and all ze crew of zo sheep I vas zail in befores!”

“Why, old hoss,” asked Hiram, all excitement, “I guess we air all friends hyar, an’ ’ll go share an’ share alike; so thaar’s no fear on a muss happenin’ atween us, like thaar wer with ye an’ them durned cut-throat Spaniards. Why shu’d it bring us bad luck, hey?”

“I vas avraid of ze curse,” replied the other. “It vas hoonted mit bloot, and vas bringt harm to every ones! I vill not touch it meinselfs—no, nevaire!”

“Guess I will, though,” retorted Hiram. “I ain’t afeard o’ no nigger ez was buried two hundred year ago; no, nor on his ghostess neither. What say ye, Sam, consarnin’ this brother darkey o’ yourn?”

“Golly, Massa Hiram!” said Sam, grinning from ear to ear at the sight of the gold. “I’se tink I’se hab claim to de lot, if it am belong to de nigger family. Ho-ho-ho!”

With that we all laughed; whereupon the skipper, whom we had forgotten for the moment, made a movement where he still lay on the floor of the cave by the entrance, opening his eyes and trying to get up, which, of course, he was unable to do, from our having tied his legs together.

“Hillo!” he called out. “Whaar am I?”

His voice now seemed quite rational, and on Tom going up to him, he found that the delirium had left him, and that he was quite sober and in his senses again, so he unloosed him, helping him on to his feet.

Strange to say, Captain Snaggs did not utter a word about finding himself tied, nor did he seem in any way surprised at being there amongst us. He was not angry either a bit now!

He simply walked up to where we stood and, looking down at the hole with the chests piled up in it, as if following out a concentrated train of thought which had been simmering in his brain before his fit, exclaimed—

“Thaar it air, jest ez I told ye, an’ ez the buccaneer cap’n told me. Thaar it air all right, I reckon; an’ now we must see about gettin’ it down to the shep.”

This staggered us somewhat; but Tom Bullover thought it best to humour him.

“How would you like it took down to the shore, cap’en?” he asked, deferentially. “Shall I go and fetch some of the hands, sir?”

“Yes, I guess thet’ll be the best plan,” replied Captain Snaggs, as easy as you please, and as if only talking about some ordinary thing, and he were giving his usual orders. “Wait a minnit, though. I guess I’ll come with ye ez soon as I’ve toted up the hull lot, fur thaar ain’t no fear of any coon walkin’ off with the plunder while we’re away, an’ I want to see how the shep’s gettin’ on. I reckon she ought to be pretty near afloat by now.”

There seemed a method in his madness, even if he were yet mad, for he carefully jotted down the number of chests in his pocket-book; and then, turning away as composedly as possible, he made his way down to the beach by our old path, just as if he had been in the habit of going that way every day of his life and it was quite familiar to him.

“Come on, men!” cried he. “Follow me!”

So, down we all tramped after him in single file to the shore, where we found a stranger thing had happened since our long absence, which, long as it seemed from the series of occurrences that had happened, the one succeeding the other in rapid succession, was not long in reality.

However, it appeared months since we had left the ship; for, in the short space of time, comparatively speaking, that we had been away, all around her had been altered, and she more than anything.

Instead of her being high and dry ashore, with her bows up in the air between the two hillocks where they had been wedged, there she was now afloat, placidly riding on the smooth waters of the harbour by her anchors, which had been laid out, it may be remembered, the morning after she stranded.

This was a far more providential circumstance than our finding the treasure; for even Mr Steenbock, sanguine as he had been at first when he suggested digging the dock under her, had begun to have fears of our eventually getting her off again into her native element—the operation taking longer than he had expected, for the water at the last had penetrated through the coffer-dam, thus preventing the men from digging out the after part of the trench under the keel piece, between the main and mizzen-chains.

Now, through the effects of the earthquake, we were fortunately saved all farther trouble on this score.

The skipper did not appear the least surprised at what had happened, displaying the same nonchalance as he did when gazing down into the cavity where the buccaneers’ gold was stowed—as if he had dreamt it all beforehand and everything was turning out exactly according to the sequence of his dream!

As we got nearer, we saw that a number of the men were grouped about the shore, collecting a lot of stray gear, which they were taking off to the ship in the jolly-boat; so, calling to these, Captain Snaggs asked where Mr Flinders was.

“He’s gone aboard bad,” said one of the hands, with a snigger, whereat they all laughed. “He don’t feel all right this arternoon, sir, an’ he went into his cabin afore the ship floated.”

“I guess, then, we’d better go aboard, too,” replied the skipper, quite quiet like. “It’s gettin’ late now, an’ we’ll break off work till to-morrow. We’ll then set about gettin’ the sticks up on her agen, my men, as well as hoist the stores aboard; fur, I means to sail out of this hyar harbour afore the end of the week!”

The hands gave a hearty hurrah at this, as if the idea pleased them, for they must have been quite sick of the place by this time; and the skipper therefore ordered Jan Steenbock and Tom, with Hiram, Sam, and I, to come off with him in the boat, telling us when we presently got aboard not to mention about the treasure to any one yet, as it might prevent the men working and rigging the ship, getting her ready for sea.

This we promised to do, keeping our word easily enough, as we did not find it difficult to hold our tongues in the matter, considering the lot there was for all hands to talk about concerning Sam’s restoration to life, after being supposed dead so long. Several of the hands, though, persisted that they knew of the deception all along, and had not been taken in by the ghost business; but this was all brag on their part, for I am sure they thoroughly believed in it at the time, just the same as Morris Jones and Hiram and I did—only Tom being in the secret from first to last!

In the course of the next four days, all the hands working with a will, even more energetically than they had done when dismantling her, the Denver City had her rigging up all ataunto again, while her graceful yards were crossed, and most of her cargo got aboard, all ready to sail.

During this time, the skipper had said not a word about the treasure, nor did he speak of sending up any one to fetch it; and so, as none of us had been back to the cave since quitting it with the captain, after the earthquake and our discovery of the hoard, Hiram and Tom, with Sam and I, stole away late on the afternoon of the fourth day to see whether the boxes were all right—Jan Steenbock being the only one of the original party present when it was found who did not accompany us; but he said he knew it would be unlucky, for him, at all events, and so he preferred stopping away.

So it was that only we four went, though Jan came with us part of the way from the ship, sitting down by the spring which had been the haunt of the doves, to await our return.

Jan did not have to remain there long alone.

No sooner had we got to the cave than we found that the treacherous skipper had anticipated and out-reached us; for, from the hurried look we took, we could see that every single chest and box had been removed, and that all were now probably stored in the captain’s own cabin. No doubt, too, by-and-by, he would swear that we had no hand in finding them, whence, of course, it must follow from his reasoning, we were not entitled to any share in the proceeds from the treasure!

This was a pretty state of things, each and all of us thought; and, boiling with indignation, we rushed back to Jan to tell him the news.

But, we met with but sorry sympathy from him.

“You vas mooch bettaire off,” he said stolidly—“mooch bettaire off mitout ze accursed stoof! It vas bringt harm to Cap’en Shackzon, and ze crew of ze schgooners dat I vas in; and, markt mine vorts, it vas bringt harms to Cap’en Schnaggs, as zertain as I vas here and dere!”

“I’m durned, though, if I don’t make him suffer fur it, if he don’t shell out!” cried Hiram hotly, as we all resumed the path back to the shore, much more quickly than we had gone up to the cave. “I’ll give him goss!”

“He vill meet his vate vrom elsevere,” said Jan Steenbock solemnly, hurrying after us, for Hiram and Tom seemed all eagerness to tackle the skipper at once, and I trotted close after them. “Ze sbirrit ob ze dreazure vill hoont him, and poonish him in ze end!”

And, incredible as my story may seem, quite unwittingly, Jan became a true prophet, as what occurred subsequently will show.

When we got to the shore, we found that the ship had her boats hoisted in, and her anchor weighed; while the topsails were cast loose, showing that she was ready to sail at a moment’s notice.

What concerned us most, though, was that we could see no means for getting on board; for the dinghy by which we had landed was towing astern by its painter, and thus all communication was cut off with the shore.

“Denver City, ahoy!” shouted out Hiram, putting his hands to his mouth as an improvised speaking trumpet. “Send a boat to take us off!”

Captain Snaggs at once jumped up on the taffrail on our hailing her.

“Not one o’ ye durned cusses comes aboard my shep agen, if I knows it!” he yelled back loudly. “Ye went ashore o’ yer own accord, an’ thaar ye shell stop, by thunder!”

“Ye durned thief!” cried Hiram, mad with rage at the villain for thus cheating us, and abandoning us to our fate there on that lone desert isle. “Whaar’s our treesor?”

“Guess ye’re ravin’, man,” bawled Captain Snaggs; and then, as if this ended the colloquy, he sang out to the hands forward to “Hoist away!”

We then noticed a slight commotion on board, as if some of our shipmates rebelled at the idea of leaving us behind, while they sailed homeward; but this intervention on our behalf was futile, for the skipper brandished his revolver, as we could easily see from the top of the cliff, to which we had now climbed, in order to make our voices better heard on board, and after a momentary pause the sails were let drop and hauled out, and the vessel began to make her way out of the bay.

The captain then called out to us, as if in bragging malice, “I’ve got every durned chest aboard! D’ye haar? Flinders an’ I brought ’em down to the beach last night when ye wer all caulkin’; an’ I guess ye air pretty well chiselled at last!—Thet’s quits fur the nigger’s ghost, an’ yer mutiny, an’ all! I reckon I’ve paid ye all out in full, ye durned skellywags!”

Those were the last words, in all human probability, that Captain Snaggs ever uttered in this mortal life.

There had been slight rumblings underground all the morning of that day, as if nature were warning us of further volcanic disturbance throughout the Galapagian archipelago; and now, of a sudden, an immense tidal wave, that seemed sixty feet high at the least, rolled into the little harbour like a huge wall, filling up the opening between the cliffs on either hand up to the very tops of these, as it came sweeping inward from the outside sea.

The next instant, the Denver City, with all on board her, disappeared, the wave sweeping back outwards with its prey, leaving the bottom of the harbour bare for over a mile, where all previously had been deep water.

The sea came back once more, though the tidal wave was not so high as before.

And still once again—ebb and flow, ebb and flow.

It was awful!

Chapter Twenty One.

Rescued.

We five—Jan Steenbock, Tom Bullover, Hiram, Sam Jedfoot, and lastly, though by no means least, myself—sole, solitary survivors of the awful catastrophe that had swallowed up our comrades, stood on the cliff above the yawning chasm, watching the tidal wave that still ebbed and flowed in diminishing volume at each reflux.

This it continued to do for a full half-hour afterwards, when the sea returned to its normal state, welling up tranquilly on the beach, and quickly washing away all traces of the recent convulsion of nature, as if nothing had happened—a sort of sobbing moan, only, seemed afterwards to come from the water every now and then at spasmodic intervals, as if the spirits of the deep were lamenting over the mischief and destruction they had wrought!

Scarcely could we believe our eyes; for, while not a single plank or piece of timber was cast ashore of the ship, which must have been taken down bodily by the remorseless wave that had hurried our cruel captain and no less cruel mate, and the rest of the crew, nineteen souls in all, into eternity, without the slightest forewarning of their doom, the little bay now looked as quiet and peaceful as of yore, with its outstretching capes on either hand, and everything still the same—equally wild, desolate, deserted, as when we first beheld it!

Most wonderful of all, though, was the fact that we alone were saved.

We were saved!

That thought appeared to flash through all our minds at once simultaneously; and, falling on our knees, there, on the summit of the headland, whence we had witnessed the terrible tragedy and now gazed down on the once more placid, treacherous sea, we each and all thanked God for our deliverance from the peril of the waters, as He had already delivered us from the cruelty of man—in the person of that treacherous, drunken demon who had abandoned us there to the solitude and the misery of exile and sailed off to enjoy, as he thought, the ill-gotten treasure of which he had robbed us. But he had met even a worse fate than he had meted out to us; for, what could have been worse for him than to die and be called to account for his misdeeds at the very moment of the realisation of his devilish design?

However, peace to his evil spirit, One greater than us poor marooned sailors would be his Judge!

That feeling was uppermost in my mind, and I’m sure it was reciprocated by the others, after we had returned thanks to the watchful Providence that had saved us while snatching Captain Snaggs away in the middle of his sins; but his name was not mentioned by any there at that moment, nor did either of us utter a word afterwards, to each other at least, so far as I can remember, about his treatment of us—not even Sam, to whom throughout he had behaved the most cruelly of all.

Sailor-folk, as a rule, are not revengeful, and death we held, had blotted out the past; so we, too, buried the skipper’s misdeeds in oblivion!

We stopped there on the cliff without speaking until it was close on sunset.

Our hearts were too full to express the various thoughts that coursed through our minds; and there we remained, silent and still, as if we five were dumb.

All we did was to stare out solemnly on the vast ocean that spread out from beneath our feet to the golden west in the far distance, where sky and sea met on the hazy horizon—with never a sail to break its wide expanse, with never a sound to break our solitude, save the sullen murmuring wash of the surf as it rippled up on the beach, and the heavy, deep-drawn sigh of the water as it rolled back to its parent ocean, taking its weary load of pebbles and sand below, as if sick of the monotonous task, which it was doomed to continue on without cessation, with ever and for ever the same motion, now that its wild, brief orgy was o’er, and its regular routine of duty had to be again resumed!

Tom Bullover was the first to break the silence.

“Come boys,” he said, when the sun’s lower limb was just dipping into the sea, leaving a solitary pathway of light across the main, while all the rest of the sea became gradually darker, as well as the heavens overhead, telling us that the evening was beginning to close in. “Come, Mr Steenbock and you fellows, we’d best go back to the cave for the night, so as to be out of the damp air. Besides, it won’t be so lonesome like as it is here!”

“Ay, bo,” acquiesced Hiram. “Thaar’s Sam’s old sail thaar, which ’ll sarve us fur a bed anyhow.”

“Dat so,” chimed in the darkey. “I’se belly comf’able dere till Mass’ Tom friten me wid duppy. I’se got some grub dere, too; an’ we can light fire an’ boil coffee in pannikin, which I’se bring ashore wid me from ship.”

“Bully for ye!” cried Hiram, waking up again to the practical realities of life at the thought of eating, and realising that he was hungry, not having, like, indeed, all of us, tasted anything since the morning, the events of the day having made us forget our ordinary meal-time, “I guess I could pick a bit if I’d any thin’ to fix atween my teeth!”

“Golly! don’t yer fret, massa,” said Sam cheerfully, in response to this hint, leading the way towards his whilom retreat. “I’se hab a good hunk ob salt pork stow away dere, an’ hard tack, too!”

“Why, what made you think of getting provisions up there?” observed I, laughing, being rather surprised at his precaution, when everyone else had been taken up with the treasure, and believed that we were on the point of leaving the island for good and all. “Were you going to give a party, Sam?”

“I’se make de preparations fo’ ’mergencies, Cholly,” he replied gravely. “Nobuddy know what happen, an’ dere’s nuffin’ like bein’ suah ob de grub!”

“Thet’s true enuff, an’ good sound doctrine. Don’t ye kinder think so, mister?”

Jan Steenbock, to whom this question was addressed, made no reply; but, as he got up and followed Sam, Hiram took this for his answer, and went after him, the five of us entering the cave in single file.

Here, we found that, from its position on the higher ground, the tidal wave had not effected any damage, the only alteration being that made by the first shock of earthquake, causing the crack across the upper end, which had dislodged the stone in the centre, and disclosed the buccaneers’ treasure. So, then, on Sam’s producing a good big piece of salt junk, with some ship’s biscuit, which he had wrapped up in a yellow bandana handkerchief and stowed away in one corner under his sailcloth, we all imitated the American, and ‘put our teeth through’ the unexpected food, finding ourselves, now that we had something to eat before us, with better appetites than might have been thought possible after what we had gone through.

Sailors, though, do not trouble themselves much over things that have happened, looking out more for those to come!

The next day, it seemed very strange to wake up and find ourselves alone there, especially after the stirring time we had recently, with the discovery of the treasure, and getting the ship afloat, and all; so, when we crawled out of the cave and went down to the beach, we five forlorn fellows felt more melancholy than can be readily imagined at seeing this bare and desolate, and hearing no sound but that of our own sad voices.

Even the coo of the doves was now unnoticeable, the birds having deserted their haunt in the grove after the earthquake shock, as I believe I have mentioned before. Lucky it was for them that their instinct warned them to do this in time; for the tidal wave had swept completely over the place, and the little dell was now all covered with black and white sand, like the rest of the shore—the sloping strand running up to the very base of the cliff, and trees and all traces of vegetation having been washed away by the sudden inrush of the water.

Jan Steenbock, whose place it was naturally to be our leader, but who had been so superstitiously impressed by the belief that our calamity was entirely owing to our having anything to do with the buccaneers’ buried treasure, which he supposed, in accordance with the old Spanish legend, to be accursed, now once more reinstated himself in our good opinion, showing himself to be the sensible man that he always was, despite the fact of his having hitherto, from the cause stated, been more despondent than any of us.

“My mans,” said he bravely, turning his back on the beach and away from the treacherous, smiling sea, “we moost not give vays to bat toughts and tings! Let us go inlants and do zometing dat vill make us dink of zometing else! We vill go oop to dat blace vere ze groond vas blanted mit tings bedween ze hills, and zee if we can zee any bodatoes or bananes vot to eat; vor, as mein frent Sambo here zays, it vas goot to look after ze grub, vor we hab no sheeps now to zupply us mit provisions!”

This was sound advice, which we immediately acted on, our little quintet abandoning the shore, and following our leader again up the cliff to the old deserted plantation. This, it may be remembered, Tom and Hiram and I had first lighted on in our quest for the treasure before we discovered the cave, but we now found out that Jan Steenbock had been previously acquainted with it from being formerly on the island.

Here we made a camp, bringing Sam’s sailcloth from the cave, with a tin pot and other mess gear he had stowed away for his own use when in hiding there, and no one knew save Tom Bullover that he was anything but a ghost; and here, thenceforward, by the help of the tortoises, whose flesh we fared on, with an occasional wild hog, when we were lucky enough to catch one, our meat diet being varied with the various tropical vegetables which we found in the valley in profusion, we lived until the rainy season came on, when we went back again to the cave for shelter.

It must not be thought, though, that our time was entirely spent in eating, or in devices how we should procure food, notwithstanding that this was the principal care of our solitary desert island life, like as in the case of most shipwrecked mariners.

No, we had a greater purpose than this.

It was the hope of escaping from our dismal exile, through the help of some coasting vessel bound up or down the Pacific, or to ports within the Gulf of Panama; and, in order to observe such passing craft we erected a signal station on the top of Mount Chalmers, and took it in turns to keep watch there throughout the day, with a bonfire hard by, ready to be kindled the moment a sail was sighted.

Alas, our watch for weeks was in vain!

Sometimes we would see a ship in the distance, but she was generally too far off to notice us; and our hearts would sink again to utter despondency when this occurred, more than when we never noticed any sail at all, on our seeing her gradually melting away, until she would be finally lost in the mists of the sea and air.

At last, however, one morning, about six months or so after the loss of the Denver City—I’m sure I cannot tell the precise date, for we began then to forget even the passage of time—Tom Bullover, who was on the look-out, came rushing down the sloping side of the cliff like a madman, covering yards with each leap and bound he took in his rapid descent, looking as if he were flying.

“A sail! a sail!” he shouted, as soon as he got near. “There’s a ship in sight, and she’s just entering the bay!”

“Vere?—vere?” cried Jan Steenbock, equally excited, running to meet him. “A sheep? You vas mat, mein pore vellow,—you vas mat!”

“Jee-rusalem—no, he ain’t!” exclaimed Hiram, who, standing on the summit of the little mound by the entrance to the cave, could see further out to sea than Jan from below. “Tom’s all right. Hooray! It’s a shep sure enuff, an’ she’s now tarnin’ the p’int on the starboard side over thaar!”

With that we all looked now in this direction; and, oh, the blessed sight! There, as Hiram said, was a vessel under full sail rounding the opposite cliff and coming into the bay!

“My golly! I shell bust—I’se so glad!” cried poor Sam, dancing, and shouting, and laughing, and crying, all in one breath. “Bress de Lor’! Bress de Lor’!”

What I and the rest did to express our joy under the circumstances it would be impossible to tell; but I’m pretty sure we were quite as extravagant in our actions and demeanour as the negro,—if not so hearty in our recognition of the all-wise Providence that had sent this ship to our rescue!

There is little more to add.

The vessel soon cast anchor in the bay; and on her lowering a boat and reaching the beach where, as may be supposed, we eagerly awaited its coming, we found out that she was a whaler, full of oil, and homeward bound to San Francisco, her captain putting in at Abingdon Island for fresh water and vegetables, as some of his crew were suffering from scurvy, and they had run short of all tinned meat on board, having only salt provisions left.

We were thus enabled to mutually accommodate each other, Hiram, and Sam, and Tom Bullover, soon fetching a big store of green stuff from our plantation in the valley, besides securing a batch of tortoises for the men in the boat to kill and take on board; while Jan Steenbock and I went with the whaler’s captain to point out our water-spring near the cave, where the doves’ grove used to be, the stream from the hills still finding its way down there to the sea below, although the little lake, or pool, had become dried up by the accumulation of sand and the trees all disappeared.

In return for these welcome supplies, the captain of the whaler gladly agreed to give us all a free passage to ‘’Frisco’; although as I need hardly tell, he would have willingly done this without any such consideration at all, after hearing our story and being made acquainted with the strange and awful catastrophe that had befallen our ill-fated ship.

But we were not altogether destitute.

Our good fortune, if long in coming, smiled on us at the last; for, the very morning of our departure from the island, a week after the whaler’s arrival, the captain remaining a few days longer than he first intended in order to allow his sick hands to recover, Hiram, while routing out a few traps left in the cave to take on board with us, found, much to Jan Steenbock’s regret,—the second-mate saying it would bring us ill-luck again—one of the little chests containing the buccaneers’ treasure, which Captain Snaggs had left unwittingly behind him when he and Mr Flinders cleared off with the rest, which they thought the entire lot.

The box contained a number of gold ingots and silver dollars, which the whaler captain said were worth ‘a heap of money,’ as he expressed it, though he would not take a penny of it for himself.

The whaler skipper was an honest man, for he told Hiram Bangs and Tom, who tried to press a certain portion of the treasure on him as his due, that it all rightfully belonged to us, and that he should consider himself a pitiful scoundrel if he took advantage of our misfortunes!

There—could anything be nobler than that?

“Guess not,” said Hiram; and, so we all agreed!

We had a capital voyage to San Francisco from the island, which we were glad enough to lose sight of, with its lava cliffs and cactus plants, and other strange belongings in the animal and vegetable world, and, above all, its sad memories and associations in other ways to us; and no more happy sailors ever landed from board ship than we five did who set foot ashore in the ‘Golden State,’ as California is called, some three odd summers ago.

The whaler captain sold our treasure for us; and the share of each of us came to a good round sum—I, though only a boy, being given by the others a fourth share, just as if I had been a man, for Jan Steenbock refused to touch any.

My portion, when realised, amounted to over 400 pounds, a sum which, if not quite enough to set one up in life and enable one to stop working, was still ‘not to be sneezed at,’ as Tom Bullover remarked to me confidentially, when we made our way eastwards from San Francisco towards New York, by the Union Pacific line, a month or so afterwards.

Hiram remained behind in California, saying he had gone through enough sailoring, and intended trying something in the farming or mining line. But Tom, and Jan Steenbock, and I, with our old friend Sam, stuck together to the end, taking a ship at New York for Liverpool, where we touched English ground again, just a year almost to a day from the time we started on our ill-starred voyage in the poor Denver City.

All of us still see each other now and again, even Hiram meeting us sometimes, when he ships in a liner and comes ‘across the herring pond,’ having soon got tired of a life ashore.

Our general rendezvous is a little shop kept by Sam Jedfoot, who has married a wife, and supplies goods in the ship-chandling line to vessels outward bound; for the darkey has a large acquaintance amongst stewards and such gentry who have the purchasing of the same, and being a general favourite with all this class of men—save and excepting Welshmen, whom he detests most heartily, somehow or other!

I am now a grown-up sailor, too, like Tom Bullover, and he and I always sail together in the same ship.

We are called the ‘two inseparables’ by the brokers, for one of us will never sign articles for a new vessel unless the other goes; and, when we come off a voyage and land at Liverpool old town, as frequently is the case, no sooner do we step ashore, at the Prince’s Landing Stage or in the docks, as may happen, than we ‘make tracks,’ to use Hiram Bang’s Yankee lingo, for Sam Jedfoot’s all-sorts shop, hard by in Water Street.

Here, ‘you may bet your bottom dollar,’ adopting Hiram’s favourite phrase again, we are always warmly welcomed by our old friend, the whilom darkey cook of the lost Denver City, whose wife also greets us cordially whenever we drop in to visit her ‘good man,’ as she calls him.

They are a happy couple, and much attached, though opposed in colour; and, here, of an evening, after the hearty spread which Sam invariably insists on preparing for our enjoyment, to show us that he has not lost practice in his culinary profession, I believe, as well as from his innate sense of hospitality, the ex-cook will—as regularly as he was accustomed to do on board ship in his caboose, towards the end of the second dog-watch, when, you may recollect, the hands were allowed to skylark and divert themselves—take up his banjo, which is the identical same one that he brought home with him from Abingdon Island.

The tune he always plays, the song he always sings, is that well-remembered one which none of us, his shipmates, can ever forget, bringing back as it does, with its plaintive refrain, every incident of our memorable passage across the Atlantic and round Cape Horn—aye, and all the way up the Pacific to the Galapagos Isles.

It is full of our past life, so pregnant with its strange perils and weird surroundings, and which ended in such a terrible catastrophe:—

“Oh, down in Alabama, ’fore I wer sot free,
I lubbed a p’ooty yaller gal, an’ fought dat she lubbed me,
But she am proob unconstant, an’ leff me hyar to tell
How my pore hart am breakin’ far dat croo-el Nancy Bell!”

Sam’s wife, too, although she isn’t a ‘yaller girl,’ but, on the contrary, as white as he is black, and Tom Bullover and I, with Hiram and Jan Steenbock—should either or both happen likewise to be ashore in Liverpool, and with us, of course, at the time—all, as regularly and unfailingly on such occasions join in the same old chorus.

Don’t you recollect it?

“Den, cheer up, Sam! don’t let your sperrits go down;
Dere’s many a gal dat I knows wal am waitin’ fur you in de town!”

The ditty always winds up invariably, as in the old days at sea, with the self-same sharp twang of the chords of the banjo at the end of the last bar, that Sam used to give when sitting in the galley of the poor Denver City.

“Ponk-a-tink-a-tong-tang. P–lang!”

I can hear it now.

Bless you, I can never forget that tune—no, never—brimful as it is with the memory of our ill-fated ship.

The End.