I stuck my feet into the crevice, and Erik from below and Nuño up top helped me into the hole. It was as if the earth itself were swallowing me; that’s how I felt.
If that crack wasn’t the very belly of a furious beast, I wouldn’t know any other way to describe it. The stone walls were red as blood, steam and hot water spewed forth from every fissure in the rock, and the air was suffocating.
“It’s this way,” said Nuño, who’d followed me down.
The cavern went even deeper into the mountain, toward the very entrails of the volcano. To not repeat myself, I won’t recount every time Boasnovas banged against everything that jutted into the passageway. I’ll only say that he once bumped his head against the floor, but without even falling first. Don’t ask me how he did it; I didn’t understand it either. At one point, the passageway became so narrow that the Whale’s entire body was completely sandwiched between the rocky walls.
“Aha!” Barracuda exclaimed up ahead. “Yellow! On the map, the passage is marked in yellow.”
We moved closer. In the upper part of the wall, we could see a small hole that looked like it was painted yellow on the inside.
“It looks very deep,” Nuño said, peering inside. “And it’s narrow . . . Sparks! Here’s where your job begins. Climb in there and pull the coffer out. It’s in there.”
I felt really important at that moment. The opening was so tiny that only I could fit in. And then I became a little afraid, let’s be honest . . . Being afraid (let me tell you, since I’ve felt the entire spectrum of fear) isn’t a bad thing; everyone feels it, even the biggest pirates, although they deny it. What is truly important is to face your fears and not let them control you.
“Captain, I think it would be a good idea to tie a cord around the boy’s foot, in case he gets stuck or can’t handle the weight of the coffer,” Erik proposed.
“What’s going on?” Boasnovas asked. “Are we there yet? It’s so terribly warm here!” He was bewildered by his blindness and all the blows to his head from walking into things.
“Come on, boy!” Whale encouraged me. “I’ll hold the cord, and I’ll pull you out of there if you find yourself in trouble. I promise you.”
I didn’t doubt that he would. Although he never said so, I knew that the Whale was very fond of me and that if something were to happen to me in there, he’d break down the wall with his teeth to get me out.
So, summarizing the situation, I was about to enter the place where supposedly old Krane had hidden a coffer full of riches—the coffer that he, in the distant Southern Seas, had robbed from the Dragon’s Blood. The pirates tied a cord around my ankle, and away I went, into a dark and narrow hole in search of a legendary pirate treasure. That was my life then! And I can’t say it was a bad life, not in the least!
The place was truly narrow, it smelled like rotting eggs, and I couldn’t see a thing. I inched along on my belly, moving forward by thrusting my hands in front of me and feeling my way. Everything was hot and damp at the same time. The voices of the others grew farther and farther away, and I began to think that the book had tricked us but good when, suddenly, my hands touched something in front of me—something smooth, with edges, and corners. Oh my! Could it be the coffer? It must be because what were the chances that some other person had hidden, precisely here, a different box, coffer, or whatever it was? I felt around until I found what seemed to be a side handle, and I tugged it with all my might. Then I shouted for the pirates to pull me out (and with me, the coffer), and that’s what they did.
As they hauled me out of that dark tunnel, the light that came in from the mouth of the hole, behind me, gradually let me see what I was pulling by the handle. First I could make out the red color of the box and then . . . there they were, even if worn and dusty: two dragons, facing one another!
And so it was: I was the first to see it once again, many years after Phineas and Khaled the Syrian had seen it for the last time: the red and black coffer of Fung Tao.
Imagine this: ten years’ of birthday parties, a lifetime of Christmases and Mardis Gras, two weddings, and five years’ of Sundays. Now take all those celebrations, mix them up, and multiply them by twelve. The result would not even come close to the blow-out party that the pirates threw when we (and the coffer) returned to the Southern Cross.
As is customary on pirate crews, the booty was split between everyone. Barracuda summoned us to the deck, and Nuño gave each of us a portion, depending on the value of each piece: two rubies and a diamond; or five aquamarines and two emeralds; and pearls, sapphires, amber, and jade.
I desperately wanted to keep, as a memento of that adventure, a valuable medallion that showed Fung Tao’s two facing dragons, carved in black jet and mounted in gold and decorated with ivory. Since I was the one who pulled the coffer from the hole, nobody refused. Little did I know then the problems this would cause! But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, I still have much more to tell you.
Here’s another pirate fact you should know: pirates don’t manage to keep their riches for very long. Another lesson I learned from these men is that what comes easily, goes easily. They can go for ages without a single escudo and then, suddenly, have enough gold doubloons to fill a beer pitcher. When that happens, nobody is more generous than a pirate. They’ll treat you to food and drink until you fall on the floor, just because you’re passing by the door of the tavern where they are or because you greet them by the lifting of your eyebrows (if you have them).
Unfortunately, I can’t fully describe for you what happened over the next four days because, by the second day, I was exhausted and fell asleep in the corner. But what I did witness was unforgettable: scruffy pirates, their faces burned by gunpowder and the sun, wearing tattered clothes adorned with hundreds of jewels. Colorful, sparkly gems hung from their ears, their foreheads, their handkerchiefs, and their hats. The ship shone brightly as if hundreds of colorful lanterns were scattered around the deck.
Boasnovas, who now began to see through his swollen eye, played the accordion (oh, did I not mention this talent of his?) with such zest that he wound up breaking the bellows. But nobody noticed until a day and a half later, such was the noise those fellows made with their singing.
Two Molars started to dance, and there was no way to stop him. He went round and round the deck like a spinning top. I had never seen him like this, and I fell to the floor laughing. But he didn’t care; he lifted up the legs of his pants as if they were a skirt and took little steps forward and back like a damsel. With a brilliant smile, Malik, to partner Two Molars in the dance, made some impressive leaps, higher than a meter and a half. The Whale, for his part, danced by moving—not his entire enormous body—just his two index fingers from side to side, while he closed his eyes and made little faces. One-Legged Jack, who still hadn’t had a chance to buy himself a new leg, propped himself up as best he could with a leg from an old chair. Since the chair leg was much longer than his real leg, he went up and down by more than a head with every step he took. And I broke my one pair of boots by leaping about the ship like a madman. I laughed so hard that my jaw hurt for at least a week after.
The captain watched us from a certain distance. Don’t for a moment think that Barracuda was going to dance or sing. You don’t know him if you could imagine that! But I knew (because I’m clever) that he was enormously pleased. At last, he could give his men a treasure, just as he had promised them.
It was the longest, craziest, most fun party of my entire life, and that’s saying a lot because, I assure you, I’ve been to plenty. When it was over, the Southern Cross was like a ghost ship, plagued with pirates sleeping everywhere, their feet swollen inside their boots from hours of dancing, and their throats hoarse from shouting and singing. We slept completely through the fifth day. The entire ship was an enormous snore that I’m sure could be heard even in Barbados.
On the morning of the sixth day, Barracuda got fed
up with seeing us sleep like big lumps. He bellowed for us to swab the deck. He commanded that we use so much water, it was as if he were going to wash us all away and dump us into the sea. If we had fought tooth and nail against the English Armada in a narrow alleyway, we couldn’t have been more exhausted. I was sticky with sweat, and through the holes in my ruined boots, I could see that my feet were black with filth. My feet hurt so much that I almost envied One-Legged Jack, who, with just one foot, must have hurt only half as much as I did.
We moved the ship from where we’d anchored and headed to the port of Basse-Terre, the capital of Guadeloupe. It was a clean and pretty city, occupied now by the French. We docked the Southern Cross. We had the advantage of nobody knowing that such a magnificent treasure had been sleeping for ages, right under their noses; therefore, no one would ever suspect that we had found such a treasure and that it was on board our ship right now. It was a perfect situation. We disembarked calmly, like fifty-three honorable travelers who had reached Guadeloupe in search of peace and quiet.
We dispersed into groups to avoid drawing attention to ourselves, although I don’t think we succeeded. I stayed with the Whale, Boasnovas, and Erik the Belgian. The first thing we did was take a bath (well, four baths; one for each of us) and buy new clothes. Boasnovas chose a very elegant—if a bit showy—suit with lots of ribbons and adornments. And over his missing eye, he put on a black velvet patch edged in gold. Erik, however, bought simple clothes, much like what he had been wearing, but without stains or holes, and went to a barber to trim his enormous mustache.
I bought red boots, which I was very excited about, and some linen pants and a shirt, which were lightweight. And I cut my hair because, once I washed it, I saw that it hung down to my shoulders. For the Whale, a tailor had to sew two pairs of pants together to make one for him. And he fell in love with a bright blue jacket that was small on him (anyone could see that) but that he liked so much, so why rain on his parade. His shoulders were squeezed so tight, and his belly was so squished in, that he resembled a turquoise-colored sausage. I was worried that he couldn’t breathe, but I consoled myself knowing that, in our next skirmish, the jacket would tear, putting an end to the problem. That jacket made the Whale so happy! Yes, it was best to let him enjoy shining like a hundred-kilo firefly for a few days—he had earned it.
At the time, none of us worried that the tailor was Chinese. And we weren’t concerned when he turned pale—as if he’d seen a ghost—as soon as he saw the medallion around my neck. No, we didn’t realize anything. We were too happily distracted. But you should take note: he was a very small Chinese man, with a face as wrinkled as parchment, bony hands, and a nose the size of a pea. I’ll remind you of him later . . . .
We agreed to meet up that night for dinner at L’Auberge de Sable (the Inn of Sand in French, Two Molars explained); he said it’s useful to know different languages. We spent the first half hour laughing at how different we looked: elegant, clean-shaven, colorful, and gleaming. It was as if the circus had come to town. But the one who stole the show was One-Legged Jack when he walked in. He wore a hat with such large feathers that one couldn’t see his face, and he was dressed in screamingly bright red balloon pants that cinched in at the knee, accentuating his new peg leg, made from ebony carved all around with grape leaves, clusters, and vines. Apparently, while passing by a furniture store, he fell in love with an Italian bed decorated from top to bottom, and he instructed the carpenter to make him a leg decorated just like the bed. It looked like he had swallowed an armchair and only a leg stuck out of him. It’s like I told you before: pirates don’t know what to do with their money.
Only Barracuda and Nuño looked like proper pirates still. The captain, freshly shaved, was dressed in his usual style, but in new, clean clothing. And Nuño, who as a young man must have been very handsome, looked like a rich nobleman. If he had driven through town in a carriage, people would have bowed when he went past; that’s how distinguished he looked. The rest of us (let’s be honest) looked like marionettes. We dined (but not too much) and drank nothing but water. We didn’t have the strength left for anything else.
It must be said, in case you were wondering, that any of us could have retired with the riches we now had. But the thought never occurred to us. Aside from buying ourselves outlandish clothing, eating until we split our sides, leaving enormous tips in the inns, and covering ourselves in gold chains and earrings . . . well, the truth is, we couldn’t think of much else to do with the money. That’s what pirates are like: always looking for treasures, to later keep looking for more treasures. That, without a doubt, is what they most enjoy doing.
“Well, Captain! In the end, it hasn’t worked out badly at all, has it?” Two Molars asked, winking his eye as if a bug had flown into it. “Not bad at all for a consolation prize . . . ”
“We must separate,” Russian Kitty (dressed all in lilac) said from the end of the table, his voice very deep. “We are doomed! Fung Tao will chase us forever! Everyone knows that he swore to do so! After his ship exploded, his men pulled him from the sea. Right then he swore that, without ever resting, he would pursue whoever had his coffer! And on top of everything else, the boy wears his medallion!” he exclaimed, pointing at my neck like someone looking at a ghost.
“Come now, Kitty,” Jack interrupted him from behind the feathers of his hat, which he refused to remove even during dinner. “Those are just superstitions. No one knows whether he was ever in the Caribbean. Besides, in any event, Fung Tao must be wearing wooden pajamas by now . . . ”
“Exactly!” Russian Kitty said, standing up. “He’s . . . dead! And his ghost won’t leave us in peace until . . . !”
“Silence!” Barracuda shouted from the other end of the table. “Have you all gone mad? Why don’t you go out into the plaza and stop every passerby to tell them every detail, if you can find someone in this cursed archipelago who hasn’t yet heard all about it with all your shouting!”
We fell silent. Despite not understanding our language, the innkeeper seemed interested in our conversation. We were suddenly aware of his close presence, and it made us nervous. More than likely, though, it was all the shouting from our group of strangely dressed men that was what caught his attention.
“Let’s go to Tortuga!” Malik proposed. “We could spend our money there without fearing that the English or the Spanish would take us prisoner. Now that area is a pirate zone! It would be like going on a holiday!”
“Captain,” Erik said, standing up as if he were going to give a speech. “I . . . I have a theory that . . . I am almost certain that . . . ,” and he fell silent as if he were embarrassed.
“A theory?” Boasnovas remarked, seeing Erik hesitate. “He couldn’t even read until just recently . . . and now he has theories!”
“Leave him alone, One-Eyed!” Nuño said. “Come on, Belgian, spit it out!”
“Well . . . maybe it’s just silly, but . . . ” Erik said, scrunching his eyebrows together as he thought really hard. “I strongly believe that Phineas’ treasure really was in Kopra.” He looked around at all of us. “Don’t you all realize? When we found the book, it seemed to us like someone was pulling our leg, a joke in bad taste from old Krane, because we were expecting, gold, silver, and jewels. I mean, we didn’t even know how to read then! But now I think that just because one might not know how to see the value of something, that doesn’t mean it isn’t a treasure . . . Look at all we’ve gotten since we found the book!”
“That’s the truth,” Boasnovas interrupted. “The you-know-what by you-know-whom has been a total success!” I think that he was winking his eye at us, but nobody realized it because he knew how to wink only the eye he was missing.
“He’ll follow us until the end of time!” Russian Kitty moaned, but nobody paid attention.
“And not just that,” I added. “It’s not just money. Remember the refuge in the Cliffs of the Condemned!”
> “That really saved our hides!” Malik exclaimed. “Although I shouldn’t say so myself,” he added, not wanting to boast . . . “And the ambush in Trinidad? If the Belgian hadn’t remembered the story of Orson the Scot, they’d have given us a licking but good.”
“Hey!” One-Legged Jack piped up. “Not all of us got out of that without a scratch, I’ll remind you lot.”
“In any event,” the Whale said, “None of that is what’s most important. Maybe what I’m about to say is pure foolishness, but I think the best part has been learning to read . . . Being able to understand what it says all over the place, of knowing what’s inside a sack or a barrel without having to open it . . . Being able to listen to Phineas himself, even though he’s no longer here or even if you had never met him! Before I knew how to read, I didn’t know how many things I didn’t know!”
“That’s true, Whale!” I said. “And if you hadn’t read that contract, then Bruno would’ve pulled a fast one over us but good!”
“Well . . . ” the Whale replied, turning as red as a lobster. “That wasn’t so important.”
“What you’re saying is not nonsense, Belgian,” Nuño said in a low voice. Nuño looked at Barracuda, who remained motionless, facing forward, which was the most he did when he was in agreement with something.
“It’s a pity,” Nuño continued, “that old Krane didn’t leave a map in the book that shows where all the riches he accumulated over the course of his life are stored. That would’ve been hitting the jackpot!”
“Well, that’s what I was talking about,” Erik said, also speaking softly. “I’m not so certain that Phineas’ treasure map isn’t in the book.”
“Come on, Belgian,” Two Molars said. “We’ve read it from front to back, and, yes, there is a lot of information about people, tricks, and characters of all sorts, but there is no map other than the one about you-know-who.”
The Treasure of Barracuda Page 7