CHAPTER XXX
The Last of my Sworn Enemy
That same day the wind, hitherto mainly from the north'ard, suddenlychanged, and blew freshly from the south-west. Nevertheless, as wewere in the joint current caused by the union of the NorthEquatorial and the Canaries' Stream, our progress was slow.
Neither could we hope for long to be favoured by the breeze, as wewere in the zone of the north-east Trades; so Captain Jeremy decidedto skirt the windward side of the Lesser Antilles and the BahamaIslands, and thus gain the double advantage of the Gulf Stream andthe prevailing south-westerly winds off the coast of North America.Having progressed thus far, the proposal at one time talked of torepair to Port Royal was given over, and our first place of call wasto be the Bermudas.
'Enery was now relegated to the post of first mate. He seemed quitecontent with the reversal of his position, since he hoped, should hereach England safely, to purchase an interest in a ship, and sail incommand.
I do not believe that there was a discontented man on the ship.Thanks to our good fortune, the individual share of the treasurewould be considerable, and everyone was in high glee; and as eachhour brought us nearer to Old England's shores, the men's spiritsrose to such an extent that I wondered what they would be like whenthey set foot in Poole once more.
On the third day of our homeward voyage we were sailing close-hauledon the larboard tack, with the island of Barbuda just visible awayto windward.
The day was hot and sultry, and, the breeze being light, the _GoldenHope_ was barely doing more than two knots.
Suddenly there was a shout from the look-out on the fo'c'sle that asmall craft was in sight. As this served to break the monotony,there was a rush for'ard to see what kind of vessel it might be.
"It's a deserted boat," exclaimed Clemens, who had snatched up atelescope. "At least, I can perceive no one in her."
As the _Golden Hope_ was heading almost straight for the derelict, avery slight alteration in her course would bring her closealongside, so Captain Jeremy ordered this to be effected.
"There's a man in her, a-lyin' with his head over the side," shouteda seaman. "I can see him moving his arm."
"That is so," assented Captain Jeremy, after a prolonged examinationthrough his glass. "A survivor of some wreck, I expect. Anyway,he'll be as dead as a marline-spike before we get alongside, if heremain like that, with the sun pouring on him."
"He's dead, right enough," said 'Enery, after a while. "'Tis thetossing of the boat that makes him move."
'Enery was right. Hanging over the gunwale, with one arm trailing inthe water, was the corpse of a man. We could not see his face, butthe nape of the neck was blackened from exposure to the sun. The armmoved sluggishly with every roll of the little craft, giving thecorpse the appearance of being alive.
"Poor fellow! Starved to death, I take it," said Touchstone softly."I've seen that sort of thing before to-day. Shall we run alongside,sir?"
"Aye," replied Captain Jeremy. "We might just as well, in case wecan do anything."
Silence fell upon the crew as the _Golden Hope_ crept slowly towardsthe floating monument of an ocean tragedy, till all at once themaster gunner shouted:
"By Jove, that's one of our chests!"
We were now near enough to see over the gunwale as the boat rolledin the oily swell. Lashed amidships, 'twixt two of the thwarts, wasone of the boxes we had made, ostensibly for the storing of the_Madre_ treasure. Then, like lightning, the truth flashed across mymind: I was gazing at the corpse of Ned Slater.
The chest told a silent tale. The villain must have begun loadingthe boat directly the _Neptune_ struck the reef; then, seeing thatthe ship was doomed, he sprang into the little craft, baselydeserting his companions in crime. By some means the boat hadescaped being swamped, and, offering little resistance to the wind,had been carried by the current in a northerly direction. When thegale died away, Slater must have prised open the lid of the chest tobloat over its contents, only to find a load of stones within.Either through the fury of his baffled hopes, or through the sternnecessity of lightening the little craft, he had hurled thevalueless cargo overboard, for the chest was empty. Helpless, andblown far from land, the villain had died a horrible death from slowstarvation.
Springing into the fore chains, 'Enery, with boat-hook in hand,caught at the gunwale of the boat as it slowly drifted alongside. Hemade a sign to a couple of seamen, who, understanding, brought aheavy shot wrapped up in a piece of canvas. Nimbly dropping into theboat, one of the men quickly fastened the weight to the body of theill-fated wretch; then, staving a plank with an axe, he sprang backinto our fore chains.
'Enery disengaged the boat-hook, and ere the _Golden Hope_ haddrifted clear the boat sank beneath the waters of the Atlantic, andthe body of my father's murderer disappeared from view till the timewhen the sea shall give up the dead that are in it.
I was glad that 'Enery had behaved thus. He had acted generously tothe memory of a man who had done his best to raise his hand againstevery member of our crew. The rogue had paid the penalty and hadreceived his deserts, though in my calmer moments I rejoiced that hehad not met his death at my hands.
Soon after this gruesome incident we picked up a steady breeze thatenabled us to make rapid progress, and seven days after leavingTreasure Island we crossed the Tropic of Cancer.
It was all plain sailing till we were within a few hundred miles ofthe Bermudas, when a heavy gale caused the main topmast of the_Golden Hope_ to spring.
In this crippled condition the brig crawled into the harbour onwhose shores the principal settlements are built, but ere we couldeffect repairs an awful hurricane, the worst I have ever met, orhope to meet, burst over the islands.
The storm came on quite suddenly, and almost before we had time tostrike our still-standing fore-topmast, and veer out all our cable.Even in the comparatively sheltered harbour where we lay the sea waschurned into a seething cauldron of foam, whilst ashore the damagewas terrific. The lightly built huts of the settlers were unroofedand most of the trees blown down; and so great was the havoc wroughtthat 'twas a matter of difficulty to get our damaged topmastrepaired till nearly six weeks after the storm.
While lying in harbour we learnt from an outward bound West Indiamanthat things at home were in a very unsettled state, for almost allmen were dissatisfied with King James.
Yet--so suspicious had Englishmen become of each other--we couldgather no definite information, though many hints were thrown outconcerning what we might expect to find on our arrival at home.
At length, on the second day of October, 1688, we weighed and setsail on the last stage of our homeward voyage, and late on theforenoon of the following day the last of the low-lying Bermudas waslost to view.
During the next three weeks nothing untoward occurred. The _GoldenHope_ pursued her course over a seemingly boundless ocean, withnever a sail to break the skyline, till, when, according to ourreckoning, we were within ninety miles of Land's End, I was arousedjust after midnight by the shout:
"A light on the starboard bow."
Gleaming faintly through the darkness, I could distinguish a smallcolumn of flame, apparently ten miles away, which faded and waxedstronger at close intervals.
"What d'ye make of it, sir?" asked 'Enery, as he and Captain Jeremymounted the poop ladder to get a better view of the mysteriouslight.
"Make of it? Why, it can be but one thing. 'Tis a ship on fire."
The Quest of the 'Golden Hope': A Seventeenth Century Story of Adventure Page 31