“It ought to have been brass,” said Nancy, “but I suppose they hadn’t got a brass one handy. Or they’d lost it.”
“Will it open now?” asked Titty.
Gingerly, John freed the hasp from the staple, and lifted the lid. Heads bumped together as the lid went up. Inside, the box was lined with lead. In it at one side were four small leather bags, with bone or ivory tags fastened to them with strips of leather like bootlaces. At the other side of the box was a small leather wallet.
“What’s written on those labels?” asked Roger.
John was reading.
“‘Bonies,’” he said. “‘Mallies.’ What on earth can that mean? ‘Niggers.’ ‘Roses.’ Shall we look in the bags?”
“Let’s wait till he comes,” said Nancy. “Let’s shut it up. The main thing is that we’ve got it.”
CHAPTER XXIX
SPANISH GALLEON
Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus,
Dipping through the Tropics by the palm-green shores,
With a cargo of diamonds,
Emeralds, amethysts,
Topazes and cinnamon and gold moidores.
MASEFIELD
THEY HAD NO difficulty in finding coconuts, some of them full of milk, and bunches of bananas not altogether crushed by fallen trees. But the discovery of that brass-bound teakwood box had changed all their plans. There could be no possible doubt that this was the thing that Peter Duck had seen buried under his bedroom tree sixty years ago. Digging was over. There was no longer any point in staying in Duckhaven, except that Captain Flint would presently be coming. He would know what to do. Neither John nor Susan nor even Nancy liked the idea of trying to take a land party across the island so soon after the terrific upheavals of the night. And then there was Swallow.
When the council was held on the beach, with the little teakwood box there on the sand, no one suggested that they should do anything but wait until Captain Flint should come back to take command and to see exactly how it had happened that the failure of the diggers had been turned as if by magic into complete success. At first they were expecting that at any moment he might come struggling out on the beach. But later they began seriously to wonder how far to sea he and Peter Duck had taken the Wild Cat, and they began reminding each other how long it would take anybody to force his way across the landslides and the tangled ruin of the forest. “It took us a jolly long time,” said Nancy, “when everything was all right and we had the blazed trail to follow, but now it’ll be like getting through miles and miles of solid hedge.”
John looked at Swallow. The rain had flattened out the sea. What wind there was was off-shore. There would be no difficulty in sailing round. But what if Captain Flint were already on his way across and were to come out there and find no one on the beach, and Swallow gone. No. The only thing to be done was to stay where they were.
“But I vote we start back the moment he comes,” said Nancy.
“Let’s run Swallow down, so that she’s all ready to launch,” said John. “It’s no bother. The rollers are still there, and we can easily haul her up again if he doesn’t get here before dark.”
“Before dark?” Susan looked at him gravely. Already Roger had been saying that coconut milk only made him more thirsty. There was no tent. And no one looked forward to a second night crouched up inside the old wreck. Titty and Roger, at least, ought to have a proper sleep. Besides, the crabs were coming back. Susan had found the first of them, making a meal of some broken biscuits in the crushed tin, when she had gone to see if anything there could be saved for midday dinner. Soon after that Roger and Gibber had found another. Then Titty, who had gone to the old wreck meaning to crawl in and remind herself of what it had been like in the night, had come hurriedly back to report that the wreck was once more crawling with crabs. “I don’t know where they’ve come from,” she said, “but there they are.”
“Anyhow, that means there’s no more earthquake coming,” said John.
“But we can’t sleep in there with the crabs,” said Peggy.
“Don’t be a galoot,” said Nancy. “We won’t have to.” But even Nancy was feeling rather glum at the thought of the darkness, with no tent, no hot tea or cocoa, and the eatables almost at an end. She liked thinking about coconut milk, but she had to look the other way and try not to taste it while she was actually drinking it.
Bananas and coconut milk were all very well, but even those who liked them were pretty hungry and thirsty by the time the morning was over and the afternoon had begun and still there was no sign of Captain Flint.
They had done all that could be done. They had dried the sleeping-bags by the fire. They had taken Swallow down the beach. They had collected the oars, that no longer had a tentpole to support, and put them into her with the sail. They had been very much tempted to open the box again and to see what was in that wallet and those little bags. But Nancy had stopped that. It was only fair that Captain Flint should share in the final triumph. They had even hooked the rusty padlock into the staple again, so that Captain Flint should see it just as it had been when they found it. A good many times some noise had made them think he was coming. But there were too many noises of a likely kind, as the fallen timber settled down where it lay. In the end they had hidden the box in Swallow, for a surprise, so that Captain Flint would not see it the moment he reached the camp. They were sitting on the rocks above Duckhaven, talking of home and of Mrs Dixon coming down from the farm with a bucketful of hot porridge on the morning after that other storm that seemed now so long ago. The sky was overcast and low banks of cloud moved over a leaden sea. Gone, since yesterday, was that clear, brilliant weather they had had when first they came. Suddenly Peggy leaped to her feet and pointed away to the north of the island. Everybody else jumped up, too, at the sight of a schooner, under all lower sail, heading south-west.
“The Wild Cat!” shouted John.
“There she is,” cried Nancy. “You are a lucky one, Peggy, always being the first to see things. It must be because you’re never thinking about something else. I’m always looking the other way when anything turns up.”
The schooner disappeared in a bank of haze. She showed again just for a moment, and then, though she was still far away, she was hidden from them by the north-east corner of the island.
“That settles it,” said John. “If we buck up and start now, we’ll be round at Bill’s Landing as soon as she is. That’ll save Captain Flint struggling across all that beastliness. Can we cram everything in, Susan? There’s nothing of a sea, and the wind’s off-shore and not too strong … Oh, come on, Captain Nancy!”
“There isn’t much to take,” said Susan. “We’ve lost nearly everything.”
“What’ll Mr Duck say when he sees what we’ve got?” said Titty.
“Captain Flint’ll be the one to be really pleased,” said Nancy.
“Bill, too,” said Titty.
“It’ll be lovely to sleep in bunks tonight,” said Peggy.
“No crabs,” said Nancy.
Susan looked at Roger, who, in spite even of the excitement of seeing the schooner, was rubbing his eyes.
“If you’re sure the sea’s all right,” she said.
“It’s the best it’s ever been,” said John, and he and Nancy slipped down from the rocks, grabbed an armful of sleeping-bags that had been spread on the rocks to dry, and raced for the Swallow.
*
Stowing the cargo was easy.
“It’s a good thing there’s been an earthquake,” said Roger, who had cheered up altogether now that it was certain they were going back to regular meals and unlimited chocolate. “It leaves us so much more room in Swallow.”
“It found the treasure for us, too,” said Peggy.
“Nothing took so much room as that old sail,” said John, “but of course it came in handy in keeping the other things dry,” he added, looking out to sea. “But there was more swell then. There’s practically none now.”
“P
ut Peter Duck’s box amidships,” said Nancy. “Easy with that barrel. I know it’s empty, but fix it so that it can’t bump about.”
“Stick a sleeping-bag under the box,” said Titty. “Let’s pack it round with all the rest of them. Nothing else really matters. Swallow’s a Spanish galleon with a hold full of treasure from the Indies.”
“Keep Gibber down in the bottom of the boat,” said Susan. “Don’t go and get wet again, cramming in before the mast.”
It was a pretty close fit for the six of them and the monkey, and for a moment Susan feared that they were too heavily loaded. But she thought again of Roger, and the empty water-breaker, and of how impossible it was to leave anybody behind. So she said nothing about it, but was careful over the mate’s job of getting everything as well stowed as it could be.
Nancy hoisted the little brown sail while they were still in Duckhaven. John, paddling beside his vessel, climbed in over the stern when he had her pointing seaward and beginning to move. With the wind off-shore and the reef sheltering them from what little was left of the swell, Swallow slipped out of the harbour.
*
They looked back to Duckhaven. It had been hard to find it from the sea, when John had sailed along there with Captain Flint, and they had been glad to see the smoke of Nancy’s fire rising from the beach. Now, it was all but invisible as soon as they had left it. The tall palm tree that had been a good leading mark when they were near enough in to see it against the sky instead of against the green background of the forest slopes, had gone for ever. The very shape of the hills had changed. The green island had turned a dusky greyish brown, with the ruin of the forest and the falling dust of the earthquake and the landslides. There were still three hills, but no one could have recognised Mount Gibber from out here, at sea, if he had not known what had happened. It was now hardly higher than the others. The tremendous landslides caused by the earthquake had carried the whole of that precipitous black peak headlong down over its wooded lower slopes. Where the green forest had climbed more than half-way up the mountain-side, where the old track from Bill’s Landing had wound across above that earlier landslide, already rich with trees and giant ferns, there was now nothing but a dreadful chaos of raw earth and rocks.
“I’m sure we were right to sail,” said Susan, with a good deal of relief in her voice. “It’d take anybody ages to get across all that. Roger could never have done it. And anyhow, another night …”
“Cheer up, Susan,” said Nancy. “Everything’s as right as ever it could possibly be. Of course we were right to sail. And she’s making first-rate weather of it.”
“Isn’t she?” said Titty. “Stately Spanish galleon. That’s what she is. Well, she was built for a sea boat.”
“She’s a jolly good one,” said John. “I say, Nancy, would you like to steer?”
“Go on,” said Nancy. “I’m all right. You know her better than I do.”
This was child’s play, John thought, compared with the steering he had had to do, when sailing her round with Captain Flint in the great swell left by the trade wind. Gone, now, were those mountain ranges of water, Andes, Pamirs, Sierras, rolling in from seaward in the evening sunshine. They were gone, but the sunshine was gone also. The sea was somehow slack and sulky. It was grey, like the sky. It was like a sea stirring in its sleep, troubled by some uneasy dream. It had been hard sailing that other day, but it had been sailing done in the clear glow of healthy weather. Today the sailing was easy, but John was in a hurry to get it over. There was something wrong. This was not the end of last night’s storm, but a lull in it. Something else was going to happen. He looked out to sea at the low clouds that hid the horizon. He looked at the ruined island. There was something in the weather that was not to be trusted, and, child’s play though the sailing seemed to be, John put his mind to it to get the best out of his ship, to get round the island, and to have the Swallow safely lifted up once more on the decks of the Wild Cat without wasting a minute. He had felt it only fair that Nancy should steer her if she wanted to, but he was glad that she had refused, that she was sitting there amidships, ready for anything that might turn up, but leaving him to do the steering, and meanwhile keeping Titty and Roger busy talking, thinking of treasure-ships sailing homeward from the Indies, and keeping still instead of moving about. Nobody moved about except the monkey, and, as they came out of the shelter of the island and began to tack towards the southern point, a little spray flew aboard and fell on him, and Gibber, after that, kept as still as anybody else, cowering on the bottom boards beside his master.
Slowly the island shores slipped by as the Swallow tacked along, out to sea and in again. From far out they could see the desolate ruin that had been made of the island, but, when they came nearer in again, it was hard to believe that so much damage could have been done. The trees had suffered less in the southern part of the island. The hills may have sheltered them from the worst of the squalls. The palms were still standing along the beach, and if there had been some sunshine, and if the green of the leaves had not been dulled by dust, John might have thought that there had been no change since the day when he had sailed past here with Captain Flint. But then, when he tacked out to sea once more, the upper slopes began to lift into view and betrayed the dreadful havoc of the night.
A last, long tack took them well clear of the southernmost point of the island, and John eased the sheet a little as the Swallow reached northward for the anchorage. They peered eagerly forward every time the boom lifted, watching for the first sight of the Wild Cat’s masts in there behind the palm trees.
“What luck if she isn’t in yet?” said Nancy. “We’ll anchor close in and let them find us there.”
“We’ll sail out again to meet them,” said Titty.
“Or we could get the barrel filled,” said Susan.
“She’s back all right,” cried John, as they neared the end of the spit, and could see over it and past the trees into the anchorage beyond them.
“Only just back,” said Nancy. “They haven’t properly furled the sails.”
“They wouldn’t,” said John. “They’d leave the sails loose. I bet they got jolly wet last night. Hullo! …” He was so startled that he brought Swallow up into the wind. “Sorry!” He recovered himself at once. “There’s another schooner. Two of them. It can’t be …”
“It’s the Viper,” said Titty. “He’s come after all.”
“Black Jake!” said Nancy.
“Well, he’s jolly well come too late,” said Titty, her hand on the old brass-bound teakwood box that was safely stowed under the middle thwart in a nest of sleeping-bags.
“He’s had a pretty tough time,” said John. “He’s in a worse mess than we are. Look at that jib down in the water. I wonder why he didn’t take it in? All his sails are anyhow. Wild Cat hasn’t stowed hers, but she’s done better than that.”
It was true. The green schooner lay there, looking neat enough, with the boom of the mainsail resting in a crutch, and both gaffs lifted clear, and the sails loose and drying. The black Viper looked altogether different. Her mainboom tipped drunkenly downwards and rested on her bulwarks. Her gaffs had been lowered right to the deck and left there, while the halyards swung loose about the masts. A jib, the halyard of which must have come unreeved, trailed in the water under the bowsprit.
“Perhaps they’ve only just got in,” said Nancy.
John looked at her. “Perhaps it was her we saw coming in from the north and not the Wild Cat at all.”
“Golly!” said Nancy, “but where are they? Why aren’t they doing something?”
“If they’ve just got in, they’ll be having supper, won’t they?” said Roger. “Or tea.”
“Anybody’d want a good tuck in if they’d been out all night,” said Nancy.
“But wouldn’t they have had it this morning as soon as things got quiet again?” said Susan.
“And where are our lot?” said John.
“I do hope they haven’t gone ashore
to come across for us,” said Susan. “Perhaps we ought to have waited, after all.”
“They wouldn’t all go,” said Nancy. “Mr Duck’ll be aboard, and probably Bill. Giminy,” she added, I’d like to see Black Jake’s face when he sees Bill looking over the side.”
“Someone’s ashore,” said Titty. “Look. There are two dinghies by Bill’s Landing.”
“I wonder how many the Viper had,” said Nancy. “She lost one that day with Bill in the fog.”
“One of them’s probably ours,” said John. “Can you see anybody ashore?”
“No,” said Susan, “but do look after your steering.”
“Sorry,” said John, with a glance at Swallow’s wake, which showed by its waggles that he had been thinking of more things than one.
The Swallow slipped on, past the spit now, and into the bay. There was not a sign of life on either of the anchored schooners. Nothing seemed to be moving on the beach, where two dinghies were pulled up clear of the water. Of the schooners, the Wild Cat. lay the nearer, the water lapping along her green topsides, while beyond her the black Viper tugged at her anchor-rope.
“Do you see that?” said John. “Black Jake must have lost his chain cable. He’s got a warp out instead.”
“Perhaps he’s only put his kedge down,” said Nancy.
The Swallow slipped nearer and nearer in the light, unsteady wind from the west, the water now silent, now lapping under her forefoot. There was no other noise but that of the water on the beach, and that, too, was not as loud as the surf had been on the other side of the island. It was more like a whisper than a roar. The colour of the island had faded, and it seemed that its noises, too, were hushed.
“They’d hear a hail now,” said John, speaking, for some reason that he could not have explained, much more quietly than usual.
Peter Duck: A Treasure Hunt in the Caribbees Page 29
