CHAPTER VIII

THE SCOURGES OF THE SEA

Tyke's eyes were staring and his face was so apoplectic that Drew was alarmed.

"Make out of it?" Tyke spluttered, getting up and nearly overturning his chair. "I make out of it that Manuel was right when he said that the old chest held something worth more'n diamonds."

Grimshaw was so shaken out of his usual calm that Captain Hamilton, too, shared Drew's alarm.

"I tell you what we'd better do," he suggested. "We're all too much excited to discuss this thing intelligently now. We've got a whole lot to digest, and it will take time. This thing will keep. Suppose we have our young friend here take this rough draft home with him and piece out the missing parts as well as he can. In the meantime we'll all mull it over in our minds, look at it from every angle, and meet here fresh and rested to-morrow morning to decide on what we'd better do."

"I guess you're right," a.s.sented Tyke, mopping his forehead. "This old head of mine is whirling around like a top."

Tyke locked the map carefully in his safe and committed the other paper and the captain's partial transcription to his chief clerk with solemn injunctions to take the utmost care of them.

But the latter stood in no need of the admonition. He would have defended those papers with his life. They meant for him--what did they not mean?

Romance, adventure, wealth! Now at last he would have something to justify his search for Ruth Adams and his suit for her hand. Now he could frame his jewel, when he found it, in a proper setting.

The three men prepared to leave the private office. Captain Hamilton was first at the door, and he unlocked it. The instant he pulled the door open, Drew heard him e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e:

"Thunderation! Mr. Ditty! What are you doing here?"

"You told me to follow you here, Captain Hamilton," said a respectful voice. "They told me you were inside, and so I waited for you."

"Humph! quite right, Mr. Ditty," Captain Hamilton said hastily. Then he thrust his, head back into the office. "My mate's come for me, Tyke. We've got an errand on Whitehall Street. See you to-morrow.

Good night, Mr. Drew."

Both the captain and the other man had gone when Drew went out into the larger room. The remainder of that afternoon he spent in a dream.

When the day's work was over, Drew dined hastily and then shut himself in his room where he worked busily until midnight, filling in the vacant s.p.a.ces in the rough draft of the confession. He was critical of his efforts, recasting and revising again and again until he was satisfied that he had caught the full meaning of the old doc.u.ment as far as it was humanly possible. Only then did he lay it aside--to dream of Ruth.

Drew was at the shop before his usual time the next morning, and Tyke and Captain Hamilton came in soon afterward. The three went at once into secret session, leaving the entire conduct of the chandlery business to Winters, much to the mystification of that youth.

All three were fresh and cool this morning as they buckled down to the problem they had to solve, and the wisdom of the previous night's adjournment was clearly evident.

"I got to talking this thing over with my daughter last night," said Captain Hamilton. "You'd forgotten I had a daughter, Tyke? Wait till you see her! Well, she was aboard the schooner for dinner with me, and she said: 'Daddy, if there is a real pirate's treasure, please go after it. Then you can stay ash.o.r.e and not go sailing away from me any more.' So, I've a double incentive for pursuing this thing," and the captain laughed.

"Yes, that's like the women-folk," observed Grimshaw. "They're always for a man's leaving the sea."

"That isn't what made you leave it, Tyke," Captain Hamilton said slyly.

"An' it won't be women-folk that sends me back to it, neither," growled the older man. "An' now, Allen," he added, as they settled comfortably into their chairs, "how did you git along with the paper? Have you got it so that it makes sense?"

"I'll let you judge of that for yourselves," replied Drew, taking the revised draft from his pocket. "Of course, I can't say that it's exactly right. Some of the missing words and sentences I had to guess at. But it's as nearly right as I know how to make it."

He waited while Grimshaw and Captain Hamilton lighted their cigars, and then proceeded to read:

"Trinidad, March 18, 17 .....

"In the name of G.o.d, amen.

"I, Ramon Alvarez, unworthy sinner that I am and not fit to take the name of G.o.d upon my lips, and well knowing that I deserve no mercy who have ever shown none, expecting to be plunged into the deepest h.e.l.l, yet basing my only hope on the Virgin Mary and the blessed saints and the shriving of Holy Church, do hereby confess the misdeeds of my life.

"From my youth up I was wild. I was with the buccaneers who, off the Tortugas, captured the French ship, _Reine Marguerite_, all of whose crew and pa.s.sengers we put to death. From there we ran to Port au Spain, ravaging and plundering. We captured the city, killing most of the men and boys and carrying off the women and girls. Off one of the Bahama Cays we took a Spanish galleon, and although her people fought stoutly, we made them finally walk the plank. Other ships we captured whose names I have forgotten. We took great spoils, but the money was accursed and was soon spent in wild living.

"I myself soon became a captain. Down in the Caribbean Sea we won a caravel and killed all on board, one hundred and twenty. I lost my ship in a tornado, but soon got another.

"Many more evil deeds we did that would make me weary with the telling.

We feared neither G.o.d nor man.

"At last, after ten years or more of butchery, the nations sent many frigates in chase of us. I fled to one of the islands and careened my ship. Tired, knowing I would be taken sooner or later, I made up my mind that I would capture one more rich prize and then be done with my wickedness.

"We captured the ship _Guadalquiver_. The fight was desperate and the decks ran with blood. We took ...... thousand doubloons, many pearls and jewels of price.

"I knew of an island off the beaten track where there was good hiding to be found. I took the cutter one night and went ash.o.r.e to bury treasure. Two men with me mutinied and I killed them both. And there the booty is still, unless it has been taken away, which G.o.d forbid.

"Now, standing mayhap on the very brink of h.e.l.l, I have made this drawing of the island where the treasure is buried. I give it freely to Holy Mother Church, and beg that part be spent for candles to be burned before the altar and for ma.s.ses to be said for my unworthy soul.

his

_"Ramon_ (X) _Alvarez_.

mark

"Attest, _Pablo Ximenes_, notary."

"Good work, Allen," commended Tyke, as the reader stopped.

"Very cleverly done," added Captain Hamilton.

Drew flushed with pleasure.

"Those old fellows were well called 'the scourges of the sea,' weren't they?" he said. "Now here! There are just two things missing that it would be the merest guess-work to supply," he added. "One is the date.

We know the century, but the year is absolutely rubbed out. The other is the number of doubloons captured with his last prize. That was in a crease of the paper and had crumbled away."

"Yes," replied Captain Hamilton; "but neither is so very important. Of course, the later the date, the less time there has been for any one to find the doubloons and take them away. We have the names of some of the ships that were captured though, and we might look the matter up in some French or Spanish history and so get a clue to the date.

"As to the extent of the treasure, we'll find that out for ourselves when we get it, if we ever do. And if we don't get it, the amount doesn't matter."

"It seems to be a pretty good-sized one, from the way the rascal speaks about it," remarked Tyke.

"Plenty big enough to pay for the trouble of getting it," agreed Captain Hamilton.

"Well, now that we know what the paper says, let's git right down to bra.s.s tacks," suggested Grimshaw. "In the first place, this particular pirate, Alvarez, was evidently a Spaniard. The language the paper is written in proves that."