Flint's Island

by Leonard Wibberley

  “Treasure talks,” said Mr. Wedcock, voicing the opinion of all. Mr. Wedcock, the same gentleman in the blue coat and yellow facings who had greeted us on arrival, was mayor of the town, though the title is too large for so small a place. “Treasure talks. And Flint’s treasure talks louder in Savannah, I would say, than anywhere else in the world.” Well it might, indeed, for Flint had found a kind of welcome in Savannah, for the curious reason that so notorious a pirate, cruising the Georgia coast, was a strong deterrent to Spanish attack, which was always uppermost in the minds of the colonists. Some (who did not know him) thought Flint something of a patriot in that most of the treasure he took came from the Spanish possessions, though no ship at sea was safe from Flint. Savannah, Flint never attacked, even pirates, I suppose, needing a home port, and it was off Savannah, as I have said, that he died of a thundering stroke while deep in rum.

  Three weeks after he had left us to go to Savannah, Captain Samuels returned with the colonial vessel Hornet, mounting four eight-pounders and, though rated as a sloop of war, schooner-rigged. His only major trouble was in the enlisting of a crew, for although everybody wanted a share of Flint’s hoard, not many, when it came to signing, were prepared to risk an encounter with Flint’s hands. Peasbody, who had been very much the hero with the cutlass he had received in the mutiny, volunteered immediately, and it was a surprise to me to find such stout courage in a man of such meanness of mind. I volunteered, of course, and so did Hodge and Smigley—Smigley, I am sure, with the hope of getting back that treasured saw of his, which he envisioned worsening each day in its baize cloth over his berth. Mr. Hogan insisted that he should be allowed to come, though Dr. Weiger was opposed.

  “You go perhaps to your death,” he said solemnly, and Mr. Hogan asked quietly whether it was not to their death that all men went, day by day. To our surprise, the thoughtful German doctor himself volunteered, and we were glad of his services, which, should we meet the Jane, would certainly be required.

  A month, then, after our arrival in Marystown, the Hornet slipped out to sea, myself with a second mate’s post and Hodge, formerly our bosun, filling the offices both of quartermaster and of gunnery officer. “Small ships, big berths,” he said. “I’d make captain in a bumboat.”

  We had been warned by Mr. Wedcock to stay clear of St. Augustine, which I was surprised to learn was the oldest settlement on the American main, outdating even Plymouth and Boston by many years. “The Spanish, sir, are no more to be trusted than your man Silver himself. They will cut your throat while offering you a glass of wine. You will find, sir, that deceit and Romanism go hand in hand in these parts.”

  But Dr. Weiger, staunch Protestant though he was, held another view. “You may trust the Spanish if you go plainly to them,” he said. “They will honor a flag of truce, and news of every ship that touches the coast of Florida is eventually reported there. A month has gone by since the mutiny, and perhaps the Spanish already have some news of the Jane.”

  So it was that, once at sea, we ignored Mr. Wedcock’s jaundiced view and, touching at St. Augustine, learned that Indians, widely used as an intelligence service, had reported a large vessel which had put in at Sand Cape on the southern tip of Florida, where a dead man had been buried ashore and water taken aboard. This could certainly be no other vessel than the Jane, and the man who died likely poor Stennis with his gangrened arm. We left St. Augustine immediately on receiving this news, and with a following wind we plunged southward to Sand Cape.

  The Hornet, schooner-rigged, sailed but poorly before the wind, and yet it was a delight to me to have a deck under my feet again and feel the lift and roll of the little sloop of war as she staggered southward. The wind went into the northwest when we rounded the tip of Florida, and here the Hornet showed her mettle, plunging along like a good horse that has found its stride, an acre of foam under her leeward rail as she reeled off the knots.

  We put in at Sand Cape, meeting there some Indians clad in tatters of clothing and one wearing a seaman’s belt which Hodge recognized as having belonged to Stennis. These unfortunates begged for food and tobacco, and in return, one who answered to the surprising name of Andrew volunteered the information that the ship whose captain had but one leg had gone off in the direction of the Florida keys—that long chain of islets which extends many miles into the Caribbean Sea from the end of Florida.

  Off we went then, and began a search of the keys, putting in at every islet and exploring every cove. The small size of our schooner was an advantage in threading the tortuous channels through coral which bestrewed the lovely green and blue waters of the keys. From a landsman’s point of view, there is surely no lovelier place in the world than this region, with its islets of glittering sand, its waters of light emerald and deepest blue, with here and there a fringe of palms rustling against the sky. But for a seaman these waters are a nightmare, the coral so thick and the channels through so narrow and twisting that a moment’s hesitation at the helm, or a correction wrongly applied, could mean disaster.

  Charts were useless for work among the coral. We had our best hands at the masthead all through the day and were constrained to anchor at night. And so we went from islet to islet, inspecting every likely cove and sending our boats ashore to explore the larger islets for any clues to the Jane. A few Indians lived on these islands, and one or two whites and blacks who had turned their backs on their own world. They insisted they knew nothing of the Jane, but a present of good London snuff (which the Indians of these parts prefer to plain tobacco) produced the vague news that a brig had passed, but nothing further.

  At last, on one of the keys known as Pine Island, we learned that a white man had come ashore on an island nearby and was hiding there from the brig, which he had deserted. And when we had put our boats ashore on the island, who should come running down the beach, hallooing with all his might, but Green, who had been foremost among the hands in the mutiny. You may imagine how he looked when he found himself confronted by Captain Samuels and myself. His face, in the tropical sun, went a shade paler; his jaw dropped, and I fancy he could see the hangman’s noose dangling before him.

  “Well, Green,” said the captain, arms akimbo, eyeing the young sailor. “First mutiny and then desertion. You’ve some curious ways for a seaman.”

  “Sir,” said Green, “mutiny is a fair charge. But desertion I deny, for I have only returned to my duty.”

  His story was soon told and gave the greatest satisfaction to Captain Samuels. Green had expected that after the mutiny, having supported Silver, he would become one of the Jane’s officers. But, instead, Silver had promoted his two surviving cronies over the Jane’s crew, and these, between hazing the crew, threats of death, and bouts of drunkenness, had utterly demoralized the men, who were heartily sick of the voyage and only remained aboard in hope of their share of the treasure.

  “I slipped ashore a week ago and have been hiding ever since, for Silver laid it down that only dead men leave his ship, being afraid of informers,” said Green. “If I am to be hung, so be it. But I’d sooner hanging than a life among Silver and his blackguards.”

  “And where is my ship now?” demanded Captain Samuels.

  “She was headed for Hispaniola but was to stop at Shark Island,” said Green.

  “Shark Island,” said Captain Samuels, “now there’s a strange port of call. It is nothing more than a sandspit where turtles lay their eggs. There’s nothing there but a brackish lagoon and a little mangrove in the way of wood and water. Why would he want to call at Shark Island?”

  “Why,” said Mr. Hogan, “what Flint did once, Silver can do again, I suppose. They both learned out of the same book. Buccaneers, having a great want of bankers, are driven to bury their hoards. It is my opinion that Silver intends to bury the treasure on Shark Island, saving out what he needs for the next few years, and killing off the witnesses. Flint did the same on his island, using one of the dead as a marker, as Silver himself told us. Silver, I would say, is a good scho
lar and will follow Flint’s example.”

  “If Silver and the other two kill what is left of the Jane’s crew,” said the captain, “how can he handle the brig thereafter? “

  “Sir,” said Mr. Hogan, “he would not have far to go, by my reckoning. Three at a pinch could handle her the thirty miles across the channel to Hispaniola. If three is too much company for Master Silver, I fancy he could pistol his companions in mid-channel, burn the brig, and make the rest of the way in a small boat alone. Undoubtedly he has replaced the ship’s boats and must have at least a gig for his service. Silver has powerful shoulders—an advantage, as he once pointed out, derived from having lost his leg. A few miles with oars would be no great task for Silver. That’s his plan, I fancy. Or something like it.”

  The prospect of his ship being burned spurred Captain Samuels to even greater effort. He took Green on board and set sail immediately for Shark Island, ignoring all the islands between. The unfortunate Green was put in irons and confined in a horrid dark hole aft for the next twenty-four hours. The excessive heat below decks, and the galls which the irons quickly wore into his wrists and ankles, turned what was designed as confinement into torture. Dr. Weiger protested the treatment, and the general feeling was that Green was more weak than wicked. So he was set free, to be chained again when we reached port, when he must stand trial for his life. In the days that followed, he became a good friend of our German doctor, who, I think, pitied Green for his youth.

  We made Shark Island in the forenoon of the following day. It presented a curious sight—a tangle of mangroves growing, it seemed, out of the middle of the ocean, with a number of taller pines, the seeding of birds, overtopping them. We crowded forward to view it, and then there came an excited hail from the lookout perched like a bird on the jaws of the foresail gaff. “A sail beyond the island,” he cried. “Looks like a small brig. Headed southeast.”

  “Clap the topsails on her,” cried Captain Samuels, for this was the moment he had been waiting for. “Mr. Whelan, break out that Genoese jib and the fisherman’s staysail. Mr. Hodge, cutlasses to all hands, if you please. I want one round from those eight-pounders at pistol range and then we’ll board. We’ll take her to weather.”

  The Jane, for such indeed the little brig proved to be, was not being well sailed. She was reaching for Hispaniola, with her yards out of trim, so that our lookout reported her topsails luffing, then filling and luffing again.

  To remain concealed, we kept Shark Island between us and the brig as long as we might, and when we at last had to slip past the island and into view, the brig—so badly handled, and without a lookout, it seemed—was but four miles off. I think it was only then that she spotted us, and the chase was on.

  On a broad reach, the Hornet was faster than the Jane, and so we came down on her handsomely. But the Jane put down her wheel and trimmed her yards better to run before the wind, which, being the best point of sailing for a square rigger and the worst for a schooner, she was soon drawing away from us. To add to our difficulties, the weather now turned squally, as is often the case in the neighborhood of islands like Hispaniola. Twice the Jane, which had now increased her lead to five miles, was lost to us in the deluge of rain that always accompanies such squalls. She was moving far faster than we and, with the aid of squalls, was soon but a white dot on the horizon and the chase seemed lost.

  The Hornet could not flee before the following wind like the Jane, and we had to take in our topsail or lose our spars, though, even in the worst of the squalls, we kept the big Genoese-cut jib out boomed overboard to weather. After the last black squall had passed over the Jane, she was not to be seen at all, and we thought her over the horizon from us. Then the lookout raised a shout of triumph. “There she is,” he cried. “Dead to leeward. She’s lost her topmasts. I see her plain and she has but lowers and courses set.”

  “She’s ours,” cried Captain Samuels. “How is the powder, Mr. Hodge? Not damp, I trust.”

  “Dry as a bone,” said Hodge. “I made up the cartridges myself.”

  Just then a shot whistled over the Hornet and plunged into the water astern. The captain eyed the fall of the shot calmly, and said, “Silver will expect us to fall off. A touch to windward, helmsman, if you please.” Sure enough, the schooner having been put half a point closer to the wind, the next shot fell a hundred yards to leeward, as Captain Samuels had guessed. It was quickly followed by another, which fell so close that the splash came up on our decks and brought from Captain Samuels the remark that Flint had always had notable gunners.

  After that, the brig fell a little off the wind herself, though we had not ourselves fired. There was plainly something aboard which had engaged the attention of her helmsman. She tended to round up to the wind and then, the luff of her sails shivering, fall away again. One more squall passed over us and then over her and the brig disappeared once again in the purple torrent of rain. Then, from the depths of the squall, came a heavy detonation and a lurid yellow flash, which I thought to be lightning. The squall cleared, but the brig was nowhere to be seen. A puff of dirty yellow smoke clung to the surface of the ocean, and nothing more.

  “By thunder,” cried Captain Samuels. “He’s blown her up.”

  “There’s something beyond,” cried the lookout. “A boat. A boat with a man, maybe more, aboard.”

  “Silver,” cried Captain Samuels. “He’ll not escape me now.”

  Yet escape he did. A boat the size of a gig is no great object in the ocean. We were looking for Silver in the full light of the declining sun and the glitter of the sea. He had been three miles off when the brig was blown up, and the lookout, with glittering white caps all around, could not keep the gig in view. He lost it in the troughs of the waves, and though we searched about until sunset, we found no further trace of the boat. Reluctantly then we set our course for Shark Island, passing through the debris of the Jane as we did so. Old Smigley eyed the few small pieces sadly, thinking no doubt of that fine saw of his which he would never see again.

  CHAPTER 19

  FLINT’S HOARD HAD gone down with the Jane, less whatever considerable portion of it Long John had been able to load into the boat. Whether he had his two rogues with him or whether he had killed them before getting away from the brig, we did not know. Certainly he was not a man to hesitate over killing two of his fellows to increase his own profit, and one of the men, Dick, was minus a hand and so would be of little use taking the boat to Hispaniola.

  We had been wrong in assuming that Long John intended to bury the treasure on Shark Island. When we reached that miserable sandspit with its few straggly pines and its stinking wreath of mangrove, we found there what remained of the Jane’s crew—half a dozen men, unarmed, three of them still suffering from wounds, and all marooned by Silver.

  “More of the Jolly Brethren of the Coast,” said Captain Samuels when we found them. “Ship gone. Treasure gone. You paid a high price for your mutiny, didn’t you? And everyone of you that’s sound with your neck in a noose.”

  From start to finish, Silver had played a winning hand. He had duped Captain Samuels on Flint’s Island until all the treasure was aboard, when he had struck. Foiled there, and once at sea, he had duped the crew into mutiny, and then he had duped them again, deserting them on Shark Island while he went off with his two fellows, who, I believe, he had disposed of in mid-channel. Thinking back on the whole story, from the moment Mr. Arrow had been killed, I saw that Silver had had the upper hand, his greatest weapon being neither pistol nor cutlass but his ability to play a part, putting such a color of plain honesty into his manner that I think that, brought to court, he would have deceived a bench of magistrates.

  The poor wretches on Shark Island were only too glad to be taken off, despite the fate that likely lay ahead for the three among them who were unwounded, for the others of course had not had any hand in the mutiny. They could give no defense for their actions but a few muttered phrases about caring for the wounded, being short of water, and Si
lver’s powers of persuasion, which had initially deceived even Captain Samuels. The captain was as hard as iron toward them. Mutiny was mutiny, and on that charge—a capital one, you may be sure—he intended they should be tried at the earliest moment. Two were from families neighbor to my own in Salem, and all came from good New England homes. But when I mentioned this to Captain Samuels, he was all the more hard against them. “Good families,” he snorted. “All the more reason why they should have stood by their captain and their ship. They shall hang, everyone of them. If they are spared, roguery everywhere will be encouraged and no ship safe at sea.”

  So Green and the three others were put on trial as soon as we reached Savannah. I think they would all have been hanged indeed, but for Dr. Weiger, who, as I have said, had conceived a great liking for Green. He hired a lawyer for their defense, and that gentleman, I believe, was the only man I have met who might have outfoxed Long John Silver. He allowed the trial to proceed until a verdict of guilty had been returned. He then rose to question not the verdict but the legality of the whole proceeding, saying that the defendants, facing a capital charge, had the right to trial in England; that they had not been made aware of that right; that they likewise had a right to trial by their peers, and gentlemen resident in Georgia and the masters of several hundred pounds a year could not claim to be the peers of New England fishermen forced by hardship to earn their living on the high seas. In fact, he cast such a vast shadow of doubt over the whole trial that in the end a mistrial was declared, the court was bedeviled and bullied into ruling that it had no jurisdiction, and the case sent to be tried again in Boston or in London.