"Is that the Sea Lion, of Oyster Pond?" demanded the skipper, boldly.
"Ay, ay," answered Roswell Gardiner, in the sententious manner of a seaman.
"Is there one Watson, of Martha's Vineyard, shipped in that craft?"
"He was aboard here for a week, but left us suddenly. As he did not sign articles, I cannot say that he run."
"He changed his mind, then," returned the other, as one expresses a slight degree of surprise at hearing that which was new to him. "Watson is apt to whiffle about, though a prime fellow, if you can once fasten to him, and get him into blue water. Does your schooner go out to-morrow, Captain Gar'ner?"
"Not till next day, I think," said Roswell Gardiner, with the frankness of his nature, utterly free from the slightest suspicion that he was communicating with one in the interests of rivals. "My mates have not yet joined me, and I am short of my complement by two good hands. Had that fellow Watson stuck by me, I would have given him a look at water that no lead ever sounded."
"Ay, ay; he's a whiffler, but a good man on a sea-elephant. Then you think you'll sail day a'ter to-morrow?"
"If my mates come over from the main. They wrote me yesterday that they had got the hands, and were then on the look-out for something to get across in. I've come out here to be ready for them, and to pick 'em up, that they needn't go all the way up to the Harbour."
"That's a good traverse, and will save a long pull. Perhaps they are in that boat."
At this allusion to a boat, Roswell Gardiner sprang into his main rigging, and saw, sure enough, that a boat was pulling directly towards the schooner, coming from the main, and distant only a short half mile. A glass was handed to him, and he was soon heard announcing cheerfully to his men, that "Mr. Hazard and the second officer were in the boat, with two seamen," and that he supposed they should now have their complement. All this was overheard by the skipper of the sloop, who caught each syllable with the most eager attention.
"You'll soon be travelling south, I'm thinking, Captain Gar'ner?" called out this worthy, again, in a sort of felicitating way--"Them's your chaps, and they'll set you up."
"I hope so, with all my heart, for there is nothing more tiresome than waiting when one is all ready to trip. My owner is getting to be impatient too, and wants to see some skins in return for his dollars."
"Ay, ay, them's your chaps, and you'll be off the day a'ter to-morrow, at the latest. Well, a good time to you, Captain Gar'ner, and a plenty of skinning. It's a long road to travel, especially when a craft has to go as far south as your's is bound!"
"How do you know, friend, whither I am bound? You have not asked me for my sealing ground, nor is it usual, in our business, to be hawking it up and down the country."
"All that is true enough, but I've a notion, notwithstanding. Now, as you'll be off so soon, and as I shall not see you again, for some time at least, I will give you a piece of advice. If you fall in with a consort, don't fall out with her, and make a distant v'y'ge a cruise for an enemy, but come to tarms, and work in company: lay for lay; and make fair weather of what can't be helped."
The men on board the sloop laughed at this speech, while those on board the schooner wondered. To Roswell Gardiner and his people the allusions were an enigma, and the former muttered something about the stranger's being a dunce, as he descended from the rigging, and gave some orders to prepare to receive the boat.
"The chap belongs to the Hole," rejoined the master of the schooner, "and all them Vineyard fellows fancy themselves better blue-jackets than the rest of mankind: I suppose it must be because their island lies further out to sea than anything we have here inside of Montauk."
Thus ended the communications with the stranger. The sloop glided away before a light south wind, and, favoured by an ebb tide, soon rounded the spit of sand that shelters the anchorage; and, hauling up to the eastward, she went on her way towards Holmes' Hole. The skipper was a relative of half of those who were interested in fitting out the rival Sea Lion, and had volunteered to obtain the very information he took with him, knowing how acceptable it would be to those at home. Sooth to say, a deep but wary excitement prevailed on the Vineyard, touching not only the sealing-islands, but also in respect to the buried treasure. The information actually possessed by the relations of the deceased mariner was neither very full nor very clear. It consisted principally of sayings of Daggett, uttered during his homeward-bound passage, and transmitted by the master of the brig to him of the sloop in the course of conferences that wore away a long summer's afternoon, as the two vessels lay becalmed within a hundred fathoms of each other. These sayings, however, had been frequent and intelligible. All men like to deal in that which makes them of importance; and the possession of his secrets had just the effect on Daggett's mind that was necessary to render him boastful. Under such impulses his tongue had not been very guarded; and facts leaked out which, when transmitted to his native island, through the medium of half a dozen tongues and as many fancies, amounted to statements sufficient to fire the imaginations of a people much duller than those of Martha's Vineyard. Accustomed to converse and think of such expeditions, it is not surprising that a few of the most enterprising of those who first heard the reports should unite and plan the adventure they now actually had in hand. When the intelligence of what was going on on Oyster Pond reached them, everything like hesitation or doubt disappeared; and from the moment of the nephew's return in quest of his uncle's assets, the equipment of the "Humses' Hull" craft had been pressed in a way that would have done credit to that of a government cruiser. Even Henry Eckford, so well known for having undertaken to cut the trees and put upon the waters of Ontario two double-bank frigates, if frigates they could be termed, each of which was to mount its hundred guns, in the short space of sixty days, scarce manifested greater energy in carrying out his contract, than did these rustic islanders in preparing their craft to compete with that which they were now certain was about to sail from the place where their kinsman had breathed his last.
These keen and spirited islanders, however, did not work quite as much in the dark as our accounts, unexplained, might give the reader reason to suppose. It will be remembered that there was a till to the chest which had not been examined by the deacon. This till contained an old mutilated journal, not of the last, but of one or two of the earlier voyages of the deceased; though it had detached entries that evidently referred to different and distant periods of time. By dint of study, and by putting together sundry entries that at first sight might not be supposed to have any connection with each other, the present possessor of that chest had obtained what he deemed to be very sufficient clues to his uncle's two great secrets. There were also in the chest several loose pieces of paper, on which there were rude attempts to make charts of all the islands and keys in question, giving their relative positions as it respected their immediate neighbours, but in no instance giving the latitudes and longitudes. In addition to these significant proofs that the reports brought through the two masters were not without a foundation, there was an unfinished letter, written by the deceased, and addressed as a sort of legacy, "to any, or all of Martha's Vineyard, of the name of Daggett." This address was sufficiently wide, including, probably, some hundreds of persons: a clan in fact; but it was also sufficiently significant. The individual into whose hands it first fell, being of the name, read it first, as a matter of course, when he carefully folded it up, and placed it in a pocket-book which he was much in the habit of carrying in his own pocket. On what principle this letter, unfinished and without a signature, with nothing indeed but its general and comprehensive address to point out its origin as well as its destination, was thus appropriated to the purposes of a single individual, we shall not stop to inquire. Such was the fact, however, and none connected with the equipment of the Sea Lion, of Holmes' Hole, knew anything of the existence of that document, its present possessor excepted. He looked it over