WE rode hard all the way till we
drew up before Dr. Livesey's door.
The house was all dark to the front.
Mr. Dance told me to jump down and
knock, and Dogger gave me a stirrup
to descend by. The door was opened
almost at once by the maid.
"Is Dr. Livesey in?" I asked.
No, she said, he had come home in
the afternoon but had gone up to the
hall to dine and pass the evening
with the squire.
"So there we go, boys," said Mr.
Dance.
This time, as the distance was
short, I did not mount, but ran with
Dogger's stirrup-leather to the
lodge gates and up the long,
leafless, moonlit avenue to where
the white line of the hall buildings
looked on either hand on great old
gardens. Here Mr. Dance dismounted,
and taking me along with him, was
admitted at a word into the house.
The servant led us down a matted
passage and showed us at the end
into a great library, all lined with
bookcases and busts upon the top of
them, where the squire and Dr.
Livesey sat, pipe in hand, on either
side of a bright fire.
I had never seen the squire so near
at hand. He was a tall man, over six
feet high, and broad in proportion,
and he had a bluff, rough-and-ready
face, all roughened and reddened and
lined in his long travels. His
eyebrows were very black, and moved
readily, and this gave him a look of
some temper, not bad, you would say,
but quick and high.
"Come in, Mr. Dance," says he, very
stately and condescending.
"Good evening, Dance," says the
doctor with a nod. "And good evening
to you, friend Jim. What good wind
brings you here?"
The supervisor stood up straight and
stiff and told his story like a
lesson; and you should have seen how
the two gentlemen leaned forward and
looked at each other, and forgot to
smoke in their surprise and
interest. When they heard how my
mother went back to the inn, Dr.
Livesey fairly slapped his thigh,
and the squire cried "Bravo!" and
broke his long pipe against the
grate. Long before it was done, Mr.
Trelawney (that, you will remember,
was the squire's name) had got up
from his seat and was striding about
the room, and the doctor, as if to
hear the better, had taken off his
powdered wig and sat there looking
very strange indeed with his own
close-cropped black poll.
At last Mr. Dance finished the
story.
"Mr. Dance," said the squire, "you
are a very noble fellow. And as for
riding down that black, atrocious
miscreant, I regard it as an act of
virtue, sir, like stamping on a
cockroach. This lad Hawkins is a
trump, I perceive. Hawkins, will you
ring that bell? Mr. Dance must have
some ale."
"And so, Jim," said the doctor, "you
have the thing that they were after,
have you?"
"Here it is, sir," said I, and gave
him the oilskin packet.
The doctor looked it all over, as if
his fingers were itching to open it;
but instead of doing that, he put it
quietly in the pocket of his coat.
"Squire," said he, "when Dance has
had his ale he must, of course, be
off on his Majesty's service; but I
mean to keep Jim Hawkins here to
sleep at my house, and with your
permission, I propose we should have
up the cold pie and let him sup."
"As you will, Livesey," said the
squire; "Hawkins has earned better
than cold pie."
So a big pigeon pie was brought in
and put on a sidetable, and I made a
hearty supper, for I was as hungry
as a hawk, while Mr. Dance was
further complimented and at last
dismissed.
"And now, squire," said the doctor.
"And now, Livesey," said the squire
in the same breath.
"One at a time, one at a time,"
laughed Dr. Livesey. "You have heard
of this Flint, I suppose?"
"Heard of him!" cried the squire.
"Heard of him, you say! He was the
bloodthirstiest buccaneer that
sailed. Blackbeard was a child to
Flint. The Spaniards were so
prodigiously afraid of him that, I
tell you, sir, I was sometimes proud
he was an Englishman. I've seen his
top-sails with these eyes, off
Trinidad, and the cowardly son of a
rum-puncheon that I sailed with put
back—put back, sir, into Port of
Spain."
"Well, I've heard of him myself, in
England," said the doctor. "But the
point is, had he money?"
"Money!" cried the squire. "Have you
heard the story? What were these
villains after but money? What do
they care for but money? For what
would they risk their rascal
carcasses but money?"
"That we shall soon know," replied
the doctor. "But you are so
confoundedly hot-headed and
exclamatory that I cannot get a word
in. What I want to know is this:
Supposing that I have here in my
pocket some clue to where Flint
buried his treasure, will that
treasure amount to much?"
"Amount, sir!" cried the squire. "It
will amount to this: If we have the
clue you talk about, I fit out a
ship in Bristol dock, and take you
and Hawkins here along, and I'll
have that treasure if I search a
year."
"Very well," said the doctor. "Now,
then, if Jim is agreeable, we'll
open the packet"; and he laid it
before him on the table.
The bundle was sewn together, and
the doctor had to get out his
instrument case and cut the stitches
with his medical scissors. It
contained two things—a book and a
sealed paper.
"First of all we'll try the book,"
observed the doctor.
The squire and I were both peering
over his shoulder as he opened it,
for Dr. Livesey had kindly motioned
me to come round from the
side-table, where I had been eating,
to enjoy the sport of the search. On
the first page there were only some
scraps of writing, such as a man
with a pen in his hand might make
for idleness or practice. One was
the same as the tattoo mark, "Billy
Bones his fancy"; then there was
"Mr. W. Bones, mate," "No more rum,"
"Off Palm Key he got itt," and some
other snatches, mostly single words
and unintelligible. I could not help
wondering who it was that had "got
itt," and what "itt" was that he
got. A knife in his back as like as
not.
"Not much instruction there," said
Dr. Livesey as he passed on.
The next ten or twelve pages were
filled with a curious series of
entries. There was a date at one end
of the line and at the other a sum
of money, as in common
account-books, but instead of
explanatory writing, only a varying
number of crosses between the two.
On the 12th of June, 1745, for
instance, a sum of seventy pounds
had plainly become due to someone,
and there was nothing but six
crosses to explain the cause. In a
few cases, to be sure, the name of a
place would be added, as "Offe
Caraccas," or a mere entry of
latitude and longitude, as "62o 17'
20", 19o 2' 40"."
The record lasted over nearly twenty
years, the amount of the separate
entries growing larger as time went
on, and at the end a grand total had
been made out after five or six
wrong additions, and these words
appended, "Bones, his pile."
"I can't make head or tail of this,"
said Dr. Livesey.
"The thing is as clear as noonday,"
cried the squire. "This is the
black-hearted hound's account-book.
These crosses stand for the names of
ships or towns that they sank or
plundered. The sums are the
scoundrel's share, and where he
feared an ambiguity, you see he
added something clearer. 'Offe
Caraccas,' now; you see, here was
some unhappy vessel boarded off that
coast. God help the poor souls that
manned her—coral long ago."
"Right!" said the doctor. "See what
it is to be a traveller. Right! And
the amounts increase, you see, as he
rose in rank."
There was little else in the volume
but a few bearings of places noted
in the blank leaves towards the end
and a table for reducing French,
English, and Spanish moneys to a
common value.
"Thrifty man!" cried the doctor. "He
wasn't the one to be cheated."
"And now," said the squire, "for the
other."
The paper had been sealed in several
places with a thimble by way of
seal; the very thimble, perhaps,
that I had found in the captain's
pocket. The doctor opened the seals
with great care, and there fell out
the map of an island, with latitude
and longitude, soundings, names of
hills and bays and inlets, and every
particular that would be needed to
bring a ship to a safe anchorage
upon its shores. It was about nine
miles long and five across, shaped,
you might say, like a fat dragon
standing up, and had two fine
land-locked harbours, and a hill in
the centre part marked "The
Spy-glass." There were several
additions of a later date, but above
all, three crosses of red ink—two on
the north part of the island, one in
the southwest—and beside this last,
in the same red ink, and in a small,
neat hand, very different from the
captain's tottery characters, these
words: "Bulk of treasure here."
Over on the back the same hand had
written this further information:
Tall tree, Spy-glass shoulder,
bearing a point to
the N. of N.N.E.
Skeleton Island E.S.E. and by E.
Ten feet.
The bar silver is in the north
cache; you can find
it by the trend of the east hummock,
ten fathoms
south of the black crag with the
face on it.
The arms are easy found, in the
sand-hill, N.
point of north inlet cape, bearing
E. and a
quarter N.
J.F.
That was all; but brief as it was,
and to me incomprehensible, it
filled the squire and Dr. Livesey
with delight.
"Livesey," said the squire, "you
will give up this wretched practice
at once. Tomorrow I start for
Bristol. In three weeks' time—three
weeks!—two weeks—ten days—we'll have
the best ship, sir, and the choicest
crew in England. Hawkins shall come
as cabin-boy. You'll make a famous
cabin-boy, Hawkins. You, Livesey,
are ship's doctor; I am admiral.
We'll take Redruth, Joyce, and
Hunter. We'll have favourable winds,
a quick passage, and not the least
difficulty in finding the spot, and
money to eat, to roll in, to play
duck and drake with ever after."
"Trelawney," said the doctor, "I'll
go with you; and I'll go bail for
it, so will Jim, and be a credit to
the undertaking. There's only one
man I'm afraid of."
"And who's that?" cried the squire.
"Name the dog, sir!"
"You," replied the doctor; "for you
cannot hold your tongue. We are not
the only men who know of this paper.
These fellows who attacked the inn
tonight—bold, desperate blades, for
sure—and the rest who stayed aboard
that lugger, and more, I dare say,
not far off, are, one and all,
through thick and thin, bound that
they'll get that money. We must none
of us go alone till we get to sea.
Jim and I shall stick together in
the meanwhile; you'll take Joyce and
Hunter when you ride to Bristol, and
from first to last, not one of us
must breathe a word of what we've
found."
"Livesey," returned the squire, "you
are always in the right of it. I'll
be as silent as the grave." |
