Читать книгу The Hispaniola Plate - John Bloundelle-Burton - Страница 13

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.