The Treasure of Pearls: A Romance of Adventures in California

by Gustave Aimard

  CHAPTER XIV.

  THE HAUL OF MILLIONS.

  Soon a cutter was lowered, in which the Mexican got, with the radiantIgnacio as his coxswain, and four oarsmen, while the moment it startedin pursuit, or as matters stood then, for the encounter of Benito'slittle piragua, dona Maria Josefa de Miranda hoisted herself up thestairs and lumbered to the side of the steamer to gloat over theproceeding.

  Gladsden saw that, though he had a boat got ready, the canoe must bemet before he could intervene, to say nothing of the probability of avolley from the bow of the _Casta Susana_ checking his attempt in midcareer. If, besides, the pearl diver ran himself ashore, encumberedwith the young lady, he was almost sure to fall among the mesquitebrush under the pistols of the salteador and his lieutenant.

  It was no question till the young Mexican and his wife were out ofperil, of attacking the formidable steamer.

  Benito's red ally, who had whispered to his grandson and drawn a nod ofcomprehension from the latter, had stripped himself, as did the youth,for diving. All other eves were on the chase. They slipped over thelow board unnoticed, opposite the _Casta Susana_, and as silently tookto the water and swam away. It looked as if they deemed the impendingcombat hopeless, and, like the rat, quitted the surely defeated ship.

  In the meantime, poor Benito, recognising with whom he had to deal,was plying the paddle manfully, whilst Dolores, falling on her kneesin the canoe, set ardently to praying, her hands clasped, and hereyes on the profound sky. All at once, without giving a warning tothe girl, so that she was shaken in her devotions, Benito turned thepirogue somewhat, evaded the Susamalis boat, and went straight to alittle rocky islet of some height, well covered with rushes and othervegetation. It would mask him from the _Casta Susana's_ crew, thoughleaving that vessel between him and his friends. Possibly, he had noother aim than to deposit Dolores thereon, and stand in defence of heragainst all comers.

  The Mexicans began to cheer their captain, whose boat, clumsily turned,resumed the hunt.

  Very little could be seen now of the chase from the low-lying goleta,and though Gladsden recklessly climbed up the rigging to get a viewover the thronged deck of the steamer, soon the piragua and the cutterwere veiled by the islet from all the spectators, friends and foes.

  "Every man to the boats!" cried the Englishman. "Arm to the teeth, and,cook, all the matches and tar; we'll board that beast of a smoky tub,"appealing to the seamen's hatred of a steamer to fire their energy,"take her or leave her a prey to the flames! Every man, active andidlers, away!"

  There was, indeed, a very fair prospect of the _Casta Susana_ beingtaken by surprise, so enwrapt was the attention of all the people ofthe Mexican, taking the cue of dona Maria Josefa, with interest andanxiety.

  But the _coup de main_ never came off. Halfway to the target, Gladsdenwas startled to see her, previously riding, doubly secured, so stiffly,nod, and begin to rock, then cant at such an incline whilst settlingdown slowly, as to cause the Mexicans to catch hold of every nearobject.

  A great outcry arose.

  It was repeated with anguish, as the careering continued as if a gianthand was rolling her over. Then the black faces of the stokers andengineer were seen as they came climbing up on deck to add themselvesto the no less terrified crew. The steamer's deck was at a slopeof forty-five, everybody clinging to the uppermost gunwale, savethe unlucky ones who had rolled to the down scuppers, in among therubbish which a Mexican captain allows to encumber his upper planks.The swaying cannon above threatened to break loose and crush thesestruggling wretches to marmalade, whilst their _vis-a-vis_, burstingthe port lids, ran out to the carriages and kissed the agitated water.Poor Maria Josefa, grasping a sailor round the body whilst he hungon the taut guy of the reeling smoke pipe, hovered over the knot ofwrithing, fighting men trying to get a footing on a surface everymoment changing its centre of gravity.

  At that direful instant the boat of Gladsden was slightly pulled downon the opposite side to the steamer, and two dark heads succeeded twopair of red arms, abruptly seizing the gunwale by chin and hands. Inthe mouths of both were the formidable _navajas_, "gapped" by recentrough usage and pointless.

  "You, Diego? And young Diego?" cried the captain, assisting them onboard.

  "Yes; you see um steamer go down, and you see um pirates go up prettysoon dam quick! Old Diego and young Diego play swordfish--we scuttlethe steamer, see?"

  In fact an ominous hissing seemed to indicate that the water risingwithin the steamer, well on her side now, was menacing a blow up ofthe boilers. The engineer and his mate fully foresaw this, and werescrambling into a boat, jammed of its fall in the blocks.

  "Heaven guard us!" was the shout on the ill-fated steamer. Some fortymen were seen preparing to launch the boats, or even leap into thewater, when a louder scream, though from one pair of lungs, was audibleover the clamour. Dona Maria Josefa, with the sailor on whom she wouldnot relax her grasp, had rolled like a ball across the perpendiculardecks, bounded over the bulwarks, now washed by the water, and splashedout of sight.

  As if her plunge had been arranged for the eliciting of a salute,pistol shots from the rock islet announced that the pirates and Benitowere at firing range.

  There was chaos.

  The hissing steam, the splitting vessel, the straining yards and masts,the knocking about of everything loose within the half-flooded hull,the exclamations of the men in the water, some of whom mounted onthe drift, shouted out "shark!" no pen can do justice to, and to thecritical situation which dona Maria was the most prominent object, thecentre, the feminine hub of a wheel of frantic men.

  The Englishman took the only course, however risky, towards desperadoeswho might not appreciate humanity. He rowed to the spot, reached thecentre, and after nearly capsizing the boat, dragged the woman safeto the stern sheets. The heavy mass lay there, inert as a strandedporpoise.

  Shrieks, and the disappearance of men in the water, of whom no furthertraces were yielded up but the ruddy bubbles which marked a shark'swake, incited the _Burlonilla's_ crew to greater speed in their rescue.But they would have been swamped by the concourse of frightened men,whom not even the presentation of a cutlass or loaded pistol kept off;luckily the steamer had finished her going down, having attained thelevel which was her altered draught, while the compressed air buoyedher. The Mexicans, seeing her deck become almost level, climbed uponher in dread of the tintorera. Gladsden left these to count theirmissing, whilst he conveyed his cargo, as prisoners, to his vessel,where they were secured. He had the swivel trained for precaution onthe unfortunate _Casta Susana_, smokeless, fireless, waterlogged, andretraced his course with a circuit to avoid the disabled foes, so as tobear the too long delayed succour to his young friends.

  Benito had run the canoe up a little cleft in the rocks, shoaled her ona stretch of sand, taken out Dolores and placed her in a grotto. Beforeher he rolled a stone, as a breakwater, gave her his revolver, andstood on guard only with the pearl diver's knife, which, however, hewell knew how to swing and thrust, as well as cast--a siring enablingthis latter trick to be executed without the knife being lost.

  Urged madly on by Matasiete, the noise on the other side of the isleton his ship puzzling him, and giving him an earnest desire to wipe outthe present vexation and return to his post, the boat stove itself onthe rock. The water was not deep, the men could leap from stone tostone or wade. The waders, two in number, trod on a stingray or anelectric fish, for they were heard to groan and seen to fall palsied intheir tracks.

  The rest confronted Benito. He drew their fire, expressly to preventa shot being directed at his wife, and then met their charge in amass. As the mob enveloped him, Dolores fired the revolver twice, moreat random than with careful aim. One shot told, for a seaman leftthe struggle to go on of itself, whilst he reeled aloof, and tumbledoff the rock into the water. Two more Benito gave a quantum of steelto Ignacio and his commander were left alone to quell the dangerousyoung Mexican. So far they had not been able to use their firearmswithout the hazard
of injuring their own. They drew off to fire withdeliberation, when the young wife, whose head had cleared after herfirst shot, and who was made a heroine by seeing that the life of herbeloved perhaps rested on the true flight of the little globes of leadin the revolver, let fly at Ignacio, whose backbone was broken by thetwo shots. As he fell in a heap, the salteador chief, aghast at beingso quickly placed solitary before his foeman, wheeled round and firedat the smoke oozing out of the young woman's cave. She screamed, for afragment of stone, cut off by the bullet, had fallen on her neck, andshe believed she was killed, supporting the delusion by swooning away.Receiving no reply, therefore, to his heartrending call, Benito flew atthe murderer with so awful a countenance and so menacing a flourish ofthe blood-smeared knife, that Matasiete did not pause to try to raisehis name to _Mata-ocho_, "the slayer of eight." He backed, and thenplunged into the bush.

  "iHola, cobarde!" cried Benito, but the other made no reply.

  There was a crashing of the bush wood, a splash, and all was silence.The young Mexican heard his name behind him in a faint voice, andrenouncing vengeance at the appeal of love, went quickly to his wife.Dame Dolores required nothing but his presence as a proof of his safetyto be recovered of her fright.

  After making certain that the assailants were incapable of mischief,the two who had been stunned by the fish surrendering with as muchalacrity as their confused senses permitted, the couple had thesatisfaction of being hailed from the boat of Gladsden.

  It is regrettable to say that the latter, in his concentration ofthoughts upon the rescue of his friends, was deaf to his oarsmenbeguiling the time as they shot by the wreck, by supplying the wordsto the notes of the key bugle in the hands of their shipkeeper. He wasplaying a song popular at the period of the outbreak of the Gold Feverin California, of which the chorus runs someway thus--applicably, thesingers fancied, to the situation:

  "Oh, oh, _Susannah!_ don't you cry for me. I'm going to Califomy withmy washbowl on my knee."

  The young couple were gaily taken off the islet, though the twoMexicans were left there to regain their clearness of wits, whilst aprolonged search was made all around it for the lost leader. The isletdid not contain him, there was little likelihood that he had gained themainland, though a sanguinary streak gave reason to the suppositionthat he had at least essayed to do so. No doubt of it, he had beendevoured by a tintorera, unscrupulous about entombing the pretendedscion of three of the great conquerors of Spanish America. It must beconfessed that this tragic end caused no chagrin to the crew and extraforce of Guaymas riffraff who acted as marines on board the _CastaSusana_. They blamed him for the whole of the disaster, and it was agood thing for his consort in the expedition, dona Maria Josefa deMiranda, that she was remote from the crew, exceedingly spiteful sincethey had escaped a watery or a shagreen bound grave.

  That lady had been completely changed in character by her bath in theGulf, a magic wrought by _Pacific_ water which may recommend it in thefuture to the lovers of peaceful married life vexed by an irritatingaunt. She showed herself quite kind towards the pair, and blamed thelate don Anibal for all her persecution.

  Ignacio and his master having kept to themselves and carried away withthem the secret lure which had decoyed the _Casta Susana_ to lay herribs on the knots of the logline reef, the Mexicans displayed no desireto linger. They filled their boats with provisions, loaded a raft tobe towed with other articles, and, the weather being fine, started offto Whale Channel, intending to cross and coast along till picked up.The peninsula was too sterile to afford so large a party any hope ofsuccessful land marches to reach inhabitants. To have done with them:they had to cut the raft adrift off Tiburon, and, parting company, thethree boats separately reached the port whence they sailed--having hadto live on tortoise and even cayman--_en route_.

  Long before their arrival, Gladsden's vessel had transported Dolores,her husband, and their aunt, fully reconciled, to Guaymas, where--astheir marriage had been so informally and unceremoniously performed bya friendly priest--Father Serafino--they received the grand nuptialbenediction in the presence of a numerous assembly of the best society,among whom Captain Gladsden had the honour of signing his name aswitness. It is needless to say that don Stefano Garcia, in considerabletrepidation--walking like a cat on hot cinders, as the proverbgoes--did not attend the ceremony.

  Before the wrecked men of the _Casta Susana_ came to port the treasureof pearls had been divided. There were other valuable stones, notablyemeralds, but the pearls were worthy all of Pepillo's eulogy; therewere perfect ones for shape and other qualities--the pears, the globes,the flatcrown (tympani, or kettledrum shaped, as the ancient said), inshort, the choicest specimens imaginable of "the Pinnic stone."

  Don Benito agreed to maintain the family of Pepillo and a sweetheartof Ignacio out of his half share, amounting, as valued by Mr. Lyons(who had his racial genius for estimating precious stones), toL150,000, well overrunning Pepillo's rough casting up. Both he andGladsden placed a large sum in the bishop's hands for almsgiving; theycontributed towards the breakwater and so on, and then separated, eachin his own way to enjoy the filibuster's hoard, originally accumulatedto revolutionise Lower California as a preliminary to annexing it tothe United States.

  Captain Gladsden sailed to San Francisco, where he disposed of the_Little Joker_, and of some of the pearls, and travelled overland totake steamship for England.

  Don Benito accompanied his wife back to her paternal estate, which wasto be their happy home.