“And now, señor, I am about to put you in possession of such information as will enable you to find my island. It is in latitude about—S., and in longitude about—W., as nearly as I had the means of ascertaining; and is uninhabited, and, I should say, unknown; for during my entire stay there, I never observed one solitary sign of man’s foot having ever pressed the soil. You will readily recognise the island from the fact that it has a remarkable isolated group of seven cocoa-nut trees growing closely together on the extreme northernmost point of the island. The central tree of this group, and one of the others, bears a mark (made by the removal of a piece of bark) as large as a man’s two hands. When you have identified these trees, walk away from them, keeping them in one, until you open, clear of the trees on the southern end of the island, a portion of the reef which you will observe just rising above the water’s edge. When you have done this, you will be standing, as nearly as possible, immediately above the hole in the deck of the wreck, through which I burrowed to her golden cargo.”
The Spaniard (for such I found him to be) then went on to describe the manner in which I should find the passage through the reef into the lagoon, giving me as much information as he could from memory of the various dangers to be avoided. He had carefully prepared a chart of the channel before leaving the island; but this was on board the vessel he had just lost.
I could see that the excitement produced by so much talking was fearfully reducing his strength, and I more than once endeavoured to persuade him to postpone the completion of his narrative, but he was sensible that he had but a short time to live, and so anxious was he to give me all the information necessary to enable me to discover this strangely buried treasure, that my endeavour to stop him did more harm even than the talking, so I was compelled perforce to suffer him to proceed. And though I felt it my duty to urge him not to excite himself, I must confess that I was deeply interested to learn how I might become possessed of the wealth to which he had referred in such glowing terms; for since it was manifest that he could not live to enjoy it himself, and as he had declared he had no relative in the world, I thought I might as well become his heir.
He continued to talk for some time longer, until he had explained to me everything he could think of which would facilitate my efforts to reach the buried treasure; and then, with a sigh of mingled exhaustion and relief, he closed his eyes, and seemed to sink into a half sleep, from which he roused himself at frequent intervals, to crave the refreshment of a draught of lemonade.
At length the sound of carriage wheels was heard; and almost immediately afterwards Bob returned, accompanied by the Catholic priest. The sick man opened his eyes, and feebly welcomed the good old man who had so readily answered his appeal for spiritual consolation. I then retired, leaving them alone to engage in the most solemn rite appertaining to their religion.
Rather more than an hour elapsed before I was recalled to the sick-room. When I stood once more at the bedside of the dying Spaniard, I saw that he had but a few minutes longer to live. He was so weak, the clergyman said, that it was with the utmost difficulty he had succeeded in expressing his wish to see me again before he died.
As I drew near his eye brightened, and a faint smile of welcome lighted up his face. His lips moved, but so faint was the whisper which escaped them, that I was obliged to bow my face close to his ere I could distinguish the words. With a painful effort he gasped, “Señor, promise me that, if you succeed, you will have two hundred masses said for my soul?”
When I assured him that his request should be faithfully complied with, the contracted brow relaxed; the expression of anxiety vanished; and in its place a smile of satisfaction and perfect happiness slowly spread itself over the pinched and pallid features, where, the next moment, it was indelibly fixed by the hand of death.
I have dwelt at such length upon this introductory episode of my story that I must now “turn the hands up and make sail” in earnest, for we have a voyage of many thousands of miles before us; and, like all thorough seamen, having once shipped for the voyage, we are impatience personified until the anchor is atrip, the canvas sheeted home, the watch set, and the lively little barkie dashing merrily away over the heaving billows, her snowy canvas gleaming in the setting sun, and the cliffs of Old England fast fading into purple mist astern.
Volume One—Chapter Three.
Bob’s Proposition.
After we had reverently laid the Spaniard to rest in his alien grave, I gave my friend Bob a full and accurate account of all that had passed, showing him at the same time the copious notes I had, at the earliest opportunity, jotted down to assist and refresh my memory in case I should ever find myself in a position to seek the hidden treasure.
But it is now necessary that I should introduce the dramatis persona who have already cast their shadows on the curtain; and this I will do with all possible brevity.
“Place aux dames.” Ada Collingwood, my darling and only sister, was at this time approaching her seventeenth year, and was a dainty specimen of lovely girlhood just budding into still lovelier womanhood. Her figure was petite, promising in due time to develop into the most faultless perfection of shape: and her laughing blue eyes and rich profusion of silky golden hair set off to perfection a face which, perhaps, no one would have dreamed of calling beautiful, any more than they would have dreamed of denying that it was charmingly piquant, and irresistibly pretty. Her temper was equable; she was gifted with a rich flow of animal spirits, and a keen perception of the ludicrous, which would have upset the gravity of the most confirmed hypochondriac.
Nevertheless, if occasion required it, her merry ringing laugh could be hushed, her joyous elasticity of movement could be subdued, and no one better than she could assume the rôle of the sick-nurse, or the tender and sympathising confidante of distress. And lastly, she adored, with a blind unreasoning idolatry for which there was no excuse, your humble servant, her unworthy brother.
Of myself, it becomes me not to say very much. I was just turned twenty-one: six feet high: and vanity whispered, in confirmation of my sister’s energetic and oft-repeated assertions, a trifle more than moderately good-looking. I was an only son (as my sister was an only daughter), and I had received my education at the Royal Naval School at Greenwich, with the understanding that I was to join my father on its completion, when he would continue and finish what is there so well begun, thus making me “every inch a sailor.”
On leaving school I joined my father (who was master and part owner of a fine dashing clipper), in the capacity of midshipman, and went some six or seven voyages with him: on the last of which, or rather a few days after its termination, I was seized with a violent attack of rheumatic fever, from which I had not recovered sufficiently to rejoin the ship by the time that she was once more ready for sea. I was consequently left at home under Ada’s care (my dear mother had been dead some years), to recover at leisure, and amuse myself as well as I could, until another voyage should be accomplished, and an opportunity once more offered for me to repossess myself of my quarters in the old familiar berth. That opportunity never arrived, for at the time my story opens, my father had been two years “missing.” He sailed from Canton with the first cargo of the new season’s teas, and from the moment that the good ship disappeared seaward she had never been heard of; not the faintest trace of a clue to the mystery of her fate having, so far, been discovered.
Bob Trunnion was a middle-aged man, of medium stature, great personal strength, and no very marked pretensions to beauty; but he was as thorough an old sea-dog as ever looked upon salt water. His visage was burnt to a deep brick-red by years of exposure to all sorts of weather; and his hair and beard, which had once been brown, were now changed to the hue of old oakum by