We had breakfast immediately, a full round meal with the unsurpassable chocolate of Spain and a rare kind of mullet I had eaten before in those waters. Wine was served in abundance afterward, and some excellent cigarettes of an exceedingly delicate fragrance. The men themselves, content to be ashore after such strenuous days afloat, lolled about in all attitudes, drinking and smoking and telling their wild tales. We were waited upon obsequiously by the Spaniards, who seemed devoted to Black and did him homage in a fashion which money had made extravagant. When the meal was done, and this could not have been until after midday, the Captain bade me follow him to his own room, and there I learned again of his intention to set out immediately for Paris, as he had threatened to do when upon the ship.
"There's business to be done, my lad," said he, "and it's not unconnected with the gold we carried away from Ice Haven. If I left you here with that, I should look for trouble when I came back. We spend the afternoon doing clerks' work, and to-night finds me on my road to Paris. You will stand in my place when I am gone. I ask nothing of you but to protect the lives of the men I am leaving behind me—and that's a thing your own English law would not forbid you to do. These men have a duty to do toward me, and I believe they will do it. If there's a man that does not, name him to me, and, so help me Heaven, I'll burn him alive when I come back. That's what I'm going to tell them before I go. They're right at bottom and well enough when they keep off the spirits. When they fall upon these, look out for yourself, and remember that one man could hold this room against a regiment. You'll regard it as your own while I'm away—and that won't be for long if all goes well. You may expect me in three days from now, Strong; not later if I can help it."
I had some difficulty in finding a rejoinder to this. His request seemed plausible enough, and since he would not set me free—and I knew he dare not do that because of the men—I could not refuse the other part of it. But I reminded him of what he said on the Zero concerning my own danger, and this found him far from his ease.
"You will have Jack-o'-Lantern for your mate," he said, "and him I trust. His wound's no more than a scratch, and he'll soon forget it. The engineer Dingo is clever enough on board, but a fool ashore. Mind the big fellow, Red Roger, and if he shows his teeth, pull 'em out. You may count on Jack to the ladder's head. I shall look to find you ready for sea when I come in. Remember, my lad, that you are under some obligation to me, and that I am putting you in a position of trust beyond ordinary. Do your duty by me—as I have done mine by you."
He was never a man to listen to argument, and he would listen to none then. No sooner were the words spoken than we returned to the great cavern and called the hands to attention. I knew that some of the treasure, at any rate, was to be got from the hold of the Zero, and I went to the quay-side as to a cave of Adullam where fabulous wealth was harboured. Soon there was a stir about, a going to and fro of a kind I had never witnessed when the pirates were ashore. Some shouted for the Spaniards to take themselves off; others unscrewed a steel hatch from the Zero and slung a little crane above it. Great boxes were hoisted and carried upon iron shoulders to one of the caverns. I saw bags which tinkled with a jingle of beads. There were bars wrapped in waste which had come from the engine-room, and a glint of gold shone where the waste had unwrapped itself. All this, I say, was carried expeditiously to one of the caverns and there laid upon the bare floor. Then a monstrous door of iron was swung to upon us, and all the truth revealed.
I had read of treasure since I was a mere lad; but never have I thought that the sight of it could so move me.
Here upon the floor of the cave were bars of so many that the walls might have been encrusted with them: diamonds ran as pebbles through the fingers which clutched at them; there were emeralds, rubies, sapphires to catch the beams of light and cast them back in radiance of unsurpassable beauty, green and blood-red and the deepest shade of violet. Upon these the pirates fell with a lust of gold inconceivable. They hugged the gold bars to their hairy breasts; fingered the precious stones until blood ran from their hands; filled their mouths with jewels and spat them out again. And then they turned to the coins, to vast heaps of gold pieces drawn from the coffers of the nations; and, a kind of madness overcoming them, they shouted and sang and rocked drunkenly in their delirium.
Here was an orgie which Black permitted to run its course. I judged that he deemed it prudent rather to show indulgence toward their intoxication than to suppress it. When the worst of the madness had passed, he called for some attention and obtained it. I saw that the treasure was to be divided up between the hands upon a ratio I could hardly understand. Very scrupulously the Captain began to estimate the values and to apportion them—he himself taking twenty shares, as I made out, to every five that the Doctor claimed. The men's share was a unit to every hundred of the Captain's, if I may trust my judgment in the matter. But, however it might have been, they divided the heap; and as each man received his share, a great iron box with his name inscribed upon it was dragged forward, and the gold—save such treasure as each desired to keep in his own possession—heaped into it. Immediately upon this a great flag was lifted from the floor of the cavern and a black orifice disclosed. I heard a sound as of the ebb and flow of the sea, and then a light shone out from the depths and disclosed a swirl of black water and the glitter of schists and the sheen of gold-green rocks. A cave lay beneath a cave, I saw, and thither the sea flowed.
Now, it was evident that the bulk of the treasure was to be transferred to a long-boat which lay tethered in the depths, and that this boat was to be manned by Jack-o'-Lantern alone. One by one the boxes and the bars were lowered down to him, and his answering hail re-echoed. I heard a splash of oars as the boat moved off, and then the light was doused immediately and the great stone stirred to its place. Of the whole treasure there remained but a bag of precious stones in Black's hand and the heaps of coin which the men had retained for their own purpose. The latter were gathered up with that prodigal in-difference which might have been expected from such a company. Men thrust fists full of sovereigns into tarry pockets or poured their loathsome gains into canvas bags which they thrust into their bosoms or slung about their necks as though they had been scapulas. Mere lust of gold had given place to the merriment of a useless possession—nor could I but reflect that the veriest pebble was here of as much value as the whitest diamond a nigger ever took from a mine.
Ah, that treasure! What blood and tears and the groans of men had not gone to its making! How many a good ship had passed to the desolation of eternal waters that these pirates might satiate their lust in the black night of reckoning! I thought of the women who had wept because of it; of the graves yet open for the dead over whom they would never close; of the lights which would shine no more in many a house of love because these men had sailed the seas. And a kind of fury took possession of me so that I could have killed them where they stood, and the great Captain first of all, even though he had called me son.
I had suffered in this way once before at Ice Haven, and, to be sure, my anger was vain enough. Impotent amidst these bloody villains, the changing scenes of their lives were the true antidote to any temper of black revolt and, perhaps, they alone saved me from a madness. Here, in the Caverns of Vares, I might know more solitary hours, but not yet. The treasure was divided, but upon that there followed immediately the departure of Black and Osbart and the bustle attending it. But a brief moment I had with the Captain before he set out in the Zero, and that was ominous enough, for he put a revolver into my hand—the first time I had ever carried arms since they trapped me on the Nameless Ship—and he bade me use it should the need arise.
"Ye may have trouble with Spaniards, but I doubt it," says he; "the man Red Roger must be watched, though he's all right when not in the drink. Stand nothing from him, lad. I'd as lief find his bones as his body when I come back. Shoot him on sight if he begins to bark; ye have my word for it, and your safety's much to me."
I did not remind him that all this talk of shooting was wild enough;