Loe raamatut: «The Hispaniola Plate», lehekülg 5

CHAPTER XI.
THEY HAVE TO DESIST

Now, by this time Phips was within a month of his thirty-sixth year, and we had been out on our fishing expedition four years almost, it being the end now of 1686 of our Lord.

"So," says Phips, "another month will see me into my thirty-seventh, and then, Nick, we must have the plate."

"Whereby you mean to say," I observed, "that you do, indeed, believe in that Jack Pudding's prophecy that at that time you shall find it. Yet I should scarce have thought, sir, that so stalwart a sailor as you would have hearkened much to such as he."

"I hearkened to him," replied he, "because I am a sailor, and therefore, like unto you, Nick, and all of us, given unto believing in auguries. Yet, reflect also on what other reasons I have. First, there was my dear mother, whose doings were most rightly foretold; and next was there the vow I always made that, some day, I would command a King's ship. Well, that have I done, though without finding the plate-carrack, and therefore I am positive that when my thirty-sixth year is past I shall do so."

"I trust you may," says I, "yet in four years it has not been done; how, therefore, shall it now be done in one?"

"We will fish in other waters," says he; "we will try another side of the reef. We will have it, Nick-have it somehow."

Yet, as you who read this paper shall see, it was not until his thirty-seventh yeare came-proving thereby, alas! that wizards and astrologers, who are the children of the devil, can speak truth sometimes-that it was to be taken from where it had lain for its forty-four or fifty years. Meanwhile I must perforce write down all that happened before that time.

To begin, therefore, the mutiny was, as you have seen, over, and so rooted up and crushed down also were the men that it was impossible there could be another. Of killed there were thirty-one, including Brooks and the man who was to have had my place, and there was something like twenty-five prisoners; the remainder of the crew, though but few, being tried men and loyal to us. Some of the dead we took into the middle of the beach and buried, while the sharks and crocodiles provided the graves for the others without any trouble to us; and then, all being done that was necessary, we left this sweet little harbour of ours, which, had it not been stained by the horrid mutiny and its outcome, we should have turned away from with regret. But, considering what had happened there, we went back to the blazing sea quite joyfully to begin once more our search.

For those mutineering ruffians who were not killed, it would have been easier to them if they had been. They worked now under the boiling tropic sun in chains, their hands alone being free wherewith to assist the divers; they were given no more food than would actually keep them alive and enable them to work; they had but one watch off during the twenty-four hours, and over them ever was an officer with a loaded pistol to his hand, ready to shoot them down. And, worse than this, whenever we should return to Spithead there they would be hanged to the yard-arm, as they would have been ere this to the yard-arm of the Algier Rose, had they not been wanted to work the ship home when her time came to go. Verily, they had gained little by their wicked foolishness!

So in this way the weeks slipped by and still we found no plate, yet was Phips firm. His commission was for five years, which would carry him well into that thirty-seventh year for which he longed so, and that commission he fully meant to serve, when, lo! there happened a thing that for a time changed all his plans, though not for long, owing to Providence, as you shall read.

One morning when the day broke, the lookout descried, some two leagues from us and our reef, a great frigate sailing very free and bearing down towards us, while to our joy we saw that she carried our own dear English colours. Now, in all the three years and a half that had passed, or nearly four, no ship of our own country had come anywhere near us, although often enough had we thought we saw them pass afar, as, indeed, they must have done on their way to some of the West Indie Islands. Yet, as I say, none had come to us, and so we had no news from the world without. But that this frigate was making for us there could be now no doubt; already, she was so near that she was shortening her sail, and, not long afterwards, she fired a salute, which we returned with joyous hearts. Then she hove-to, and signalled to us that the Captain was to go aboard.

You may be sure that he went very willingly, the ship proving to be the Guinea, and an old Commonwealth frigate I knew very well, and a good sailer; and brave enough did Phips look as he took his seat in his boat, all adorned in his best scarlet coat and his great wig; "for," says he, "hot as the morning is, and will be hotter, I will not go to greet a brother-captain foully dressed."

That we in the Algier Rose waited impatiently enough for the news you may be sure, and, since 'twas long a-coming, that impatience became very great. Indeed, 'twas not till night was near at hand that we saw the boat coming back to us, while at the same time we saw the great frigate's topsayl fill, and observed her slowly gather way and steer towards the west. Then, a while later, the Captain came aboard, and, sending for me into his cabin, he said, while I noticed that his face was grave and sad:

"Nick, we have to give up the search; we shall not get the plate now. The frigate was, as doubtless you made out, the Guinea, on her way to Jamaica to relieve the Constant Warwick, and brought me my orders to go home."

"But," said I, "the commission was for five years; they are not yet expired."

"Nay," says he, "that matters not. The King is dead, and has been so for a year, and the Duke of York has succeeded him. And he believes not in putting the ships of his navy to treasure hunts, deeming such things better for private adventurers. Moreover, he says the Algier Rose can do better service at home against his enemies-of which the Captain of the Guinea says he has a many-than in fishing for plate. So, to-morrow, Nick, we will take in water from the island, and away to England."

"'Tis pity," says I, "a many pities. Yet the King's orders must be obey'd. And the plate-I wonder who will get that?"

"I shall," said Phips sharply, "and you, Nick, if you will follow me. For the very moment I give up my command of this ship, I shall seek out those private adventurers of whom the new King speaks. I would pawn my life the thing is there, and I will have it. Am I a man to be thwarted?"

Indeed, he was no such a man-only, as I whispered to him, he must, if still he believed in his Geomancer, be very sharp. He would be in his thirty-seventh year by the time he set foot on English ground again.

"Ay, ay," says he, while he took a great drink from his cup and passed it to me, "and so I shall, But before the thirty-seventh year is gone, I shall be back again-and you shall be with me, Nick, an' you will."

For myself 'twas very easy to say I would come. If James was king now, then he would have for officers of his ships all those who had served him when he was a sailor, and never had I been one of those. Moreover, I had no interest with either Edward Russell-who is now as I write Earl of Orford-or with Rooke, both of whom were like to be the King's great seamen; so that there was little enough likelihood that I should get another ship. There were just now hundreds of worthy sailors waiting for appointments, and I had no better chance than, if as good as, they. Also was I gone my time, having been now at sea since 1656, when I went a boy of eight, so that I was nigh forty years of age, and was never like now to be a captain, being but a plain sailor and no gentleman courtier or page of honour. Had I been that and not known the maintruck from the keel, then, perhaps, might I have gotten a ship at twenty. But enough of this, only I had a mind to come out with Phips if he came again as an adventurer; and that we should see when we got home.

A week later we had wooded and watered from our isle, and the wind being fair away we went, while the last piece of counsel we received came from the beastly great negro of whom I have writ before. This creature's name was Juan, he having been born at San Domingo city, a Spanish slave, which he no longer was, and as we had always thought, though we were never convinced thereof, had egged on Brooks and the others to mutiny by telling of them that we were a-fishing in the wrong pool-as anglers at home say-but that if they could take the frigate from Phips, whom he hated, he could show them where the plate really was.

So now he shouted to us from his periaga, as 'tis called there,

"Adios, Don Phipo, adios. Berry sorie, Massa, you no find platy, but you look not in proper place. You ever come back again, which not berry like, you send for Juan and pay him better, he show you many tings if he not show it someone else firsty. Adios, Don Phipo, adios cada uno, I hope you berry nice cruise to Englishy waters. Adios," and with that he hoisted his little sail and was gone.

Phips scowled at him first and then burst out a-laughing, while one of the sailors flung a musket ball at him, and so we sailed away disappointed men.

"A very nice cruise" it was not our good fortune to have, for we were teased and pestered with contrary winds and storms all the way. Then we got into the Horse latitudes-where the Spanish used to throw their horses overboard on their way to the Indie Islands, to lighten their ships so that they could move in the calm-or called by some the Doldrums-and here we lay for some weeks. There we suffered much in every way. The sea is here like glass, there is not a wind to stir a sa'l nor to refresh the panting men, and the air is like a furnace. Moreover, here the seams of a ship will yawn, the meat become rotten, and the hoops shrink away off the casks so that they burst and leak, letting out the water-of beer we had naturally none left. The sea, too, looks lyke oil and not water, while the setting of the sun gives one the idea that the whole world is a-fire. Great crimson fleaks of flames blaze all across the heavens, then tinges of saffron, green, and pink shoot up, and then comes the grey darkness, as though 'twas the smoke after the fire.

And while we who were free all this time suffered so, 'twas far worse and more terrible with the condemned mutineers, for, being down in the ballast, since there was nought for them to do on deck while we lay still, their agonies from the heat were insufferable. Five of them did die-even though at the last they were fetched above-and so 'twas better for them, since had they lived there was nought but the hanging at Spithead before them.

Thus, when at last we got a wind which took us home-and a roaring, tearing wind indeed it was, that sent us often under bare poles with fear every moment that our crazy frigate with her open seams must go to the bottom-we worked very short-handed. Yet home at last we did get, looking like scarecrows in a field, and so yellow that those who knew us said that, if we had found no silver, at least we had brought a plenty of gold on our faces. Yet right glad were we to see old England again after so long, and to sleep once more in a good English bed.

CHAPTER XII
THE BARK "FURIE."

Now I will not write down much as to how we found the state of things on our return, yet somewhat must I say.

To begin with-all of which was very bad for our hopes of getting another ship-we found the King a dreadful declared Papist and with most of the nation against him. Moreover, he was passing daily laws and regulations for the oppression of the Protestants, so that he was much hated, and all the world wagged its head and said that so extreme a tyrant must ruin England unless a change came. And some there were who even went so far as to say he had poisoned King Charles-though this was never proved, and concerns not my history, to which I now return.

When the Algier Rose was paid off (which was done in a way shameful to our navy-namely, by giving us but half of what was due and the other half in promises, which were not fulfilled until the next King's reign, and then only with difficulty to us) Phips and I, who went to live together near the Strand, saw very soon that we should get no other King's ship to go back to Hispaniola. His Ministers laughed at us when we sounded them; one old nobleman asking us if we thought his Majesty had not enough to do with his vessels, without sending them on any such fool's errand as this? And, indeed, he was right, for things were thickening round James, we being come to the year 1687. People had not forgot the Monmouth rebellion and its brutalities, of which we heard now for the first time; they hated the King's doings and his mass in the chapel, and although he had a great big army at Hounslow this year-which Phips and I rode down to see-all the soldiers had an aversion to his religion, excepting the few Papists among them. On the sea he was not very busy just now, and no fighting done since we went away; yet it was ever thought that trouble would come-as indeed it did, though not in the way expected.

So, therefore, as now you will see who read, we had to turn our thoughts to other ways, and at once we began to look about for some proprietors who would send us forth to look again for the Hispaniola plate.

At first we had no success. Indeed, in the City, to which we resorted, the project was treated by the merchants and goldsmiths with extreme contempt, they jeering at us; while one of the latter told us he had gotten together more plate than he desired, and would cheerfully sell us some. But this was not our business, so we looked again. And now, at last, we heard of one who we thought would do for us-our knowledge of him being produced and brought to us by a friend who knew what we were seeking for. And the person to whom he pointed was Christopher Monk, the second Duke of Albemarle.

This nobleman had in no ways ever done aught to carry on the great reputation of his father; but, instead, he had, on coming into a most enormous fortune at that father's death, twenty years ago, given himself up to loose and vicious courses, as well as having a ravenous liking for drink. Yet one fancy he had which improved on this, and was very good for us and our desires-viz., he loved to hear of treasure-finds, of the sacking of cities for plunder: such as those of Drake in the Indies in the Great Queen's reign, or of Sir Henry Morgan, the buccaneer who sacked Panama and Porto Bello, wherefore the late King gave him the government of Jamaica, which Albemarle was afterwards himself to have; and, above all, of the digging up of hidden wealth. So to him, having obtained a letter introducing us, away went Phips and I to see what might be done.

He listened very attentively to us and, when Phips said he did in truth believe there was three hundred thousand pounds under the water, he sighed and said he would he could have some of it, for he wanted money badly. This we could well believe; for though his father left him so vast a fortune, he was a heavy gambler, and his Duchess-a half-witted creature, granddaughter of the Duke of Newcastle, to whom he was married before his dying father, as he lay on his bed-had ravaged him with her extravagance and debts.

So says Phips to him:

"Then, your Grace, if you will have it you shall. Find me but a ship well fitted and this very year-no other-it shall be yours. It is there, I know; I have much evidence it is; and though I have fished in the wrong place hitherto, yet now will I find it. And, as I say, it is my year."

"Why, sir," said the Duke, "why this year more than any other?"

Yet this Phips would not tell him-confiding in me afterwards that, though he believed in the astrologer, he was ashamed of his belief. So, then, next says the Duke:

"But why seek not the Spanish, or the French, who have now gotten possession of the North of Hispaniola, if not all of the island, for this plate? 'Tis worth their while, if 'tis worth mine."

"Your Grace," says Phips, "it is not possible they should seek for it. Ever and always are they fighting together for possession, when not massacring of the natives-of whom three millions have been slain since Columbus's day-and truly they have neither time nor inclination, even if they believe, which all do not. Then, for private adventurers, there are none among them who can or will risk the money; so that if any find it it must be an Englishman."

In this way, and with many other arguments and proofs, did Phips press it on the Duke-particularly leaning on the boat that came ashore, after the wreck of the carrack, full of plate; so that, at last, he said he would think well upon it, and bade us come again in a week's time.

"For," says he, "of myself I cannot now do it, though I could very well once" – and here he sighed-"when I had my father's fortune. But now I am no longer rich and am even petitioning the King for employment, and have the promise of Jamaica. Still I will see among my friends, and I will ask the King's permission. He, you know, must have a tenth and adventure nothing."

"Let his Majesty have it," says Phips, "and then I'll warrant your Grace there shall be enough to satisfy all."

"Sir, you are very sanguine," says the Duke. "But there, come in a week and you shall hear."

So we made our bow and left him.

Now, I have so much yet to write of the finding of the plate and then all that followed, as well as to tell you, who may read, how you shall also find a fortune if you will seek, that I must waste no space, but crowd on with my story.

So I will briefly write down that, when the week was past, we went to the Duke's again, and he coming up to us-a little flustered with his morning tankard, as I thought, though no ways drunk-takes Phips by the hand and then me, and says he:

"Gentlemen, I think it is done, and we must send you out. So now listen to what I have attempted."

And with that he bade his serving-men begone and see he was not interrupted till he called. Then he went on:

"I have gotten," he said, "a ship for you, not so good as a King's ship, yet well found, of a good burthen. The crew you shall pick up yourselves-God knows there are many sailors now in London wanting bread! Then, as for repayment, you and Captain Crafer" – for so he called me, though I was no captain-"must be willing to be paid by return, or what the merchants call a 'per centum.' Now, are you willing to do this?"

We said we were very willing provided we were put to no expense for provisions or furnishing of the ship, which we could not do, and he said that matter should be arranged, as well as the payment of the sailors, which must be part now and part hereafter, when we returned, out of the proceeds. So after many more particulars we agreed to all, and we left the Duke to go into the city and see the merchants, and then to attend to fitting of the ship.

She was, we found, when we got to her in Limehouse Pool, after we had spoken with the merchants very satisfactory, a good bluff-bowed bark named the Furie, who had been employed in the slave trade, about which we did not inquire too curiously, knowing very well what uses the Guinea merchants put such ships to. Suffice it, therefore, if I say she was large and roomy for her size, with many good cabins, especially on the deck, a good main cabin, and a clear fo'castle. And so we set to work to pick up a crew.

Now, as the Duke had truly said, there was no want of sailors just now; for, firstly, we were not at war with any power; and, secondly, the men went in but slowly to the King's ships of war because their pay was so uncertain; and, thirdly, because all were against him, hating the Papists he had gotten both into the navy and army, and hating him too, as well as his Papist Queen, who had passed off a false heir on the nation, as they said; and also his beastly mistress, Sedley, now made Lady Dorchester. So when we went about the taverns of Blackwall and Wapping, we soon picked up a likely crew enough, and when we told what our cruise was for-namely, to get up a treasure-ship-they were all eager to come. Therefore, at last we did get more offers than we could well accept, seeing that we wanted but twenty, and so made a good pick. Of them some were old King's men who had seen much service like myself, two had taken part in Sir Robert Holme's "bonefire," when he burnt up the Dutch ships, some more had fought under Prince Rupert-as I did-when he beat De Ruyter, others had fought against Selvagees' Armada, and all were of much experience.

Now, therefore, we had but to victual the bark and to put in our beer and water, and all was ready; so to it we went, the merchants behaving very generously. Yet, since Phips felt sure-owing to his belief in his precious geomancer, who was doubtless hanged for a knave ere now-that we should not be gone a year, we by no means overloaded her. Still, all was very well; we went out with a plenty of beef and pork, a gallon of beer a man every day for some months, with, after that, some spirituous liquors, and with good pease and oatmeal as well as bread. Also, which was of equal need, we had good arms, taking with us new cutlashes and muskets, several cannon, including two thirty-two-pound ones and a twenty-four, some pierriers, or swivel-guns, very useful, and several others. And, since this time we hoped not to fail, we took all applications for diving, such as a bell, pumps, bladders for the head, and so forth, such as was used at Mull for fishing up part of the Spanish Armada in the beginning of the late King's reign.

And so we went away again to find, as you shall read, the Hispaniola Plate. But to set it down baldly and to say only that we did so find it, would be to give no help to those who shall come after me, whensoever that shall be. Therefore, when next I take up my pen I must tell of all our doings, of the way in which the treasure was gotten, and of that uncommon villain who was soon now to appear amongst us, and who did, in very truth, by his extreme villainies, lead to my crowding the paper as I do for the benefit of those who follow me.