The Hispaniola Plate

But they answered not. We heard our balls crash into the sides of the Snow, we heard her timbers splitting and bursting, we even heard the shivering of a mast or yard, and its fall on the deck-but no reply was made. No ball came back crashing into us, no report echoed ours. All was still.

"Let the smoke clear off," I said, "ere we fire again. Meanwhile, keep your guns loaded. Can it be that all are slain?"

The smoke did evaporate shortly, and then we learnt that 'twas as we thought. Either the pirates were all slain or-fled. We had won our day. From our rattlins, by running up a dozen, I could see on to the deck of the Etoyle, and perceive men lying about dead. Also, too, could observe the deck stained with blood, the fallen mast bearing the vile silken flag a-lying across one man-it having smashed his head in as it fell. But though I gazed at the gun tackle where I had seen Alderly, he was not there now, neither near it nor by it. Had he therefore escaped?

"We must board the Etoyle again," says I; "yet since the negro with his lighted match may still be by the powder, I will go alone first, as is my duty. Lower the boat."

Since I had regained our tender I had been standing enrapt, gazing with all my might at the smoke first, and then up into the shrouds again at the enemy, taking no heed of my own craft. But now, as no one stirred, to my hearing, to obey my orders, I turned round sharply to chide them, but as I did so I started and felt myself go pale.

"Good God!" I exclaimed, "good God! What is this?"

There were but three men, I recollected in an instant, that had leaped back into the galliot from the Snow, and those three men were here in the ship behind me. But, alas! two were now dead; the third, Israel Cromby, was a-lying on his back, gasping out his last few breaths.

"Oh!" says I, "oh! my poor men-this is a sorry sight for any commander to see. Cromby, man, it is ill with you, I fear?"

He opened his eyes, all covered with a film like a poor partridge a gunner has knocked over, and then he whispered-

"Sir, sir. There is a poor old woman down Rotherhithe way-she is-my mother. She-drawed-my money-tell her-she has no other means whereby to live-if you-get back, see to-. Sir, I've done my duty."

So he died and joined the others, and went his way to meet his God.

And I was left alone.

From the Etoyle there came no sound, nor from the woods neither did any come. So I told myself this would not do. I must be stirring. Thinking which, I lowered down the boat, having to shift the bodies of my poor dead men to get at the tackle, and then got down into it, and so to the Etoyle. It was no use wasting time when I got to it, I reflected; if any were alive of the enemy they must be encountered soon or late-as well now as then. And the negro I did feel sure was dead. Otherwise, he would have blowed up the Snow or else come forth.

Making fast the boat, I clambered up over the side of the buccaneer's craft, and then I saw pretty quick all that had happened, looking first to see for the negro. He was done for, as I had imagined, and was lying flat on his back at the foot of the hatchway, his match burnt out in his dead black hand, which, I saw later, had been singed and scorched by the flames; yet that hand had been perilously near to the powder-barrels while the slow match lasted, as it lay all stretched out.

On the deck they laid about, my men and Alderly's, as they had fallen, and I did perceive that our broadside had finished up one or two at least of the latter, who were still breathing when I got aboard, though not long after. Of my six men who had fallen there, I made instantly a burial, tying shots to them and heaving them over the side-for I would not have the birds of prey-many of whom were hovering about the banks of the river-tear and devour them. This I did do when I felt sure they were indeed dead, but of the pirates I took no heed-the birds might have their bodies (as I doubted not the Devil had got their souls by now), for all I cared.

One thing-or rather two-I did not find which I would very willingly have done. There was no sign anywhere of either Alderly or the casket he had flourished in our faces. Now, if Alderly had died before his men, or some of them, this would not be strange, since I knew-having hunted pirates before to-day-that the captains had ever the desire to be flung overboard the moment they were dead, and always in their finery and adornments.

And this doubtless had happened to him; that is, if he had not escaped, which was, of course, possible for him to have done if he had not his death wound when I encountered him. And the casket might have gone too-though this I doubted; at least, it would not go while one man remained alive, and he would not sink it until his last gasp, at which time he might be then too feeble so to do.

Yet I resolved to search the Snow, to see if any were lurking about, or if the casket was hid anywhere. 'Twould not take long to do, and even though it did, what matter? There was no call on my time.

Down below, to which I went after carefully scrutinizing the deck, all was in great disorder; weapons were lying on the cabin table alongside of food and victuals, and there was a broached barrel of rumbullion-or kill-devil-a-standing in the middle of the cabin, with a scooper, or long-handled ladle, hard by, which doubtless they had drunk from by turns; and since they were drunk when we met 'em in the night, I supposed they had been drinking ever since they had deserted us. Leastways, the barrel was half empty, yet none was spilled.

Here was the body of a man shot into the head, and very ghastly-I doubted not he had fallen down the hatch when struck, or, may be, run down for drink to ease him. And now, seeing this corpse set me off a-calculating how many there had been in the Etoyle, and how many there were now-whereby I should get the difference of those in the ship, and those who had been flung, or fallen over, or-if it might be so-escaped. And, at last, I did arrive at the solution that but two were missing; namely, the villain Alderly and his diver. Therefore, even allowing them to be alive, all but three of both crafts had been killed in the fight.

And if those two had escaped it must be by having leaped overboard in the smoke and confusion-'twas certain they had not taken their boat, for it still lay along their deck, upside down, where they always kept it, as I had seen often when they were moored alongside the Furie. Now it had a shot in it from one of our guns, I did perceive, which was perhaps the reason it was not used-though their haste to get away was more like to be the cause. Yet, I pondered, if they had hastened away, where was then the treasure? The casket alone would almost, I should judge, sink a man who endeavoured to get ashore with it, though it was but a few yards to swim-how could it be, therefore, that they and their stolen prize had got away? The truth, I did conceive now, was that all, Alderly, diver, and treasure, were at the bottom of the river.

But by this time the night was approaching, vastly different from the former one, it being calm and cloudless; and I was worn out with want of rest, and with the fighting and excitement. So I resolved I would take a night's repose, and then in the morning I would explore the island carefully-'twould not take long, being not a league in length nor half as broad, as I knew; above all, I would see if I could find the goods you wot of. As for the two pirates, I feared them not one atom; face to face, I deemed myself-a king's late officer-the match for any two dirty pirates that ever breathed.

So I let go the Etoyle's anchor and made her fast for the night, and then rowed me back to my galliot and prepared for my rest.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE VILLAIN'S DEN

'Twas as I have writ, a night vastly different from the precedent one, beautifully calm in this little channel, or river, with the moon arising behind the wood that bordered its eastern bank, and with a cool breeze coming from the sea and rustling through the leaves. And as the moon rose above the treetops she flooded all the river with light, making a great shadow of the Etoyle on the water, and also of the galliot.

I lay me down upon the deck of my craft wrapped in a boat-cloak, as soon as I had gotten things a little ship-shape for the night (I had anchored the galliot before I went off to the Snow), but sleep came not easily. There were, indeed, many things a-running through my brain. Firstly, there were my poor dead sailors sleeping below in the water-probably already food for the great variegated crabs that do here abound-whom I could not but lament, and especially Israel Cromby, with his dying thoughts of the poor old dependent mother at Rotherhithe. Then there was the position to be thought of in which I now stood. I had the galliot to get me away in, 'twas true, to the adjacent islands, some of which were inhabited by my own countrymen, and not far off neither-but, supposing I got back the treasure from the pirates, should I ever get it safe home to England? I knew not, as yet, how much it was; whether the casket was all or only a portion; whether also that portion was a huge mass of gold or silver, or a small one of jewels. Above all, should I get it in any form or shape whatever? Was it buried in the river ere the last of the pirates died, or were those two men alive, and had they got ashore and buried it there? Still my fatigues were such that, in spite of all my conflicting and unhappy thoughts, I slumbered at last. Long and peacefully I slept aboard the little craft, which had none other now but myself for its inhabitant, with the cool night wind blowing all over me, and freshening me as I lay.

Yet I awoke ere daylight had come-startled by something, I knew not what!

The moon was at her full height now, the channel was as light as day, 'twas that, I thought to myself, had waked me; and I turned over on my side to sleep again. Yet, as I dozed, and should soon have been gone again, once more I was disturbed. "Perhaps 'tis a beast," thought I, "in the wood, crashing through the undergrowth," – for such I fancied to be the sound-"perhaps 'tis-"but here I ended my speculations, for I saw what had aroused me.

'Twas the two villains, Alderly and his diver, a-standing on the bank of the river gazing into it. 'Twas their steps I had heard crunching on the underbrush.

Now it did so happen that our galliot had a cabin aft, with, cut into it on either side of the sternpost, two portholes, so that, lying here, I could very well see through those scuttles what they were a-doing without their seeing me. Whether they thought I was not in my vessel I could not guess; or whether they knew I was, having watched me all the latter part of the day from the wood, but deemed me now asleep, 'twas impossible for me to tell-yet doubtless 'twas the latter, since they seemed wary in their movements.

Yet was it obvious to me, watching them as I did, that both were still under the influence of the drink; as they stood gazing into the water, first one would give a lurch, then the other, or one would hiccough, and the other would curse him under his breath for making of a noise; and once the diver-whose name I knew not-nearly fell forward into the river, and would have done so, had not Alderly clutched him and hauled him back. And all the time the moon enabled me to see the latter's tawdry finery, all smirched with dirt, with powder and filth, and his broken feather in his hat, and the stains and grime about him, while, as for the other, he had nought but the coarsest of apparel upon him.

Now, seeing they were still drunk, I did begin to think they had a resort of some sort in this isle, perhaps comrades upon it from whom they could get drink, since 'twas hours since they had had any in the Snow. Which led me to reflect that, if there were more of these wretches here, my case was a bad one. However, watching of their actions drove these reflections from out my head, for a time at least.

Presently, one, Alderly, stoops him down, going on to his hands and knees and, baring his arm up to the shoulder, thrusts it into the water, and begins moving it backwards and forwards as though feeling for something in it. And shortly he found what he wanted, for he lifted up a stone as big as my head, with round it a rope that ran on, into, and under the water as he lifted of it up. This was easy to perceive, for the drops of water sparkled on it like diamonds as he held it at his end.

"Ha!" thinks I to myself. "I do guess what's at t'other end now. Well, well, we will see." Yet, as I so thought, I looked to my priming. I thought it would not be very long ere I should have to shoot these two ruffians, and take my chance of there being more of the same sort on the isle. But the time had not come yet, I did perceive, and meanwhile I lay perfectly snug watching their doings.

A moment after Alderly had gotten the stone and rope up, he threw away the former, and began, with his comrade's assistance, hauling and tugging at it, and presently they got ashore from under the water a long box of about four feet-though 'twas not what I expected to see, namely, the casket. This, I made sure, would have been fished up, but 'twas not. I never did see it again.

'Twas plain to observe there was no more to come, for no sooner was this box up than they made as though they would depart, Alderly letting the rope drop back gently into the water; and then, as I could see by his gestures, making signs to the diver to pick the box up and carry it. But this led to an argument between them; I could observe them shrugging of their shoulders with a drunken gravity, lurching about now and again as they did so, and stumbling against the box more than once; and then, suddenly, I perceived Alderly strike the other in the mouth and knock him down.

"Now," thinks I, "this leads to more things. If they go on like this, there will be only one pirate soon for me to contend with, so far as I know."

Even as I pondered, my words came true. The diver got up, whips out a long knife, and made a rush at the other-the weapon sparkling as though it was dipped in phosphorus in the rays of the moon-and in another moment they had closed together.

But Alderly was the best man of the two-which was perhaps why he was chief of the Etoyle-and ere long he had hold of the other's wrist with one hand and had got him round the body with the other. Then, by degrees, he did bring the body down until it lay across his own knee, face upwards, and having, as I did see, the strength of a bullock, or a vice, he forced the other's arm up and down, directing so his clenched hand that he compelled him to plunge his own dagger into his own breast. Once, twice, thrice, he did it! – the diver screaming with the first plunge of the knife into his bosom, groaning with the second, and with the third making no noise. Then Alderly lets go the diver's fist from out of his own, and frees his own body from his grasp, and down the diver fell to the brink of the river.

"You slew yourself," says he, looking down at him; "'twas your own knife that did it, your own hand that plunged it in." And here he laughed, an awful, blood-curdling laugh. The laugh of a maniac or a fiend! Then he put his foot to the dead man's body and tumbled it over into the river, so that I saw it no more. Next, seizing on to the long box-and nearly falling over it as he did so in his half-drunkenness-he lifted it on to his shoulder and went into the wood. Only, as he departed I saw him also lift up his foot and touch his shoe with his finger, and hold that finger up in the moon to look at; and then he gave again that awful laugh. He was a-laughing at the dead man's blood in which he had trampled!

"Now," says I, "is my time; I will find out if he can also slay me. At any rate he shall not escape without doing so," and with these words I lowered the boat again, got into it and went ashore-the distance from the galliot being not twenty yards. And then, securing of the boat to the trunk of a small tree by the river's brink, I plunged in after him to the wood. Only, you may be sure, I had my pistols with me and my sword.

At first the little wood was so dark that I could not see, or scarce see, the moon a-shining dimly through the thickness-a thickness all made of wild orange, citron, and pomegranate trees, as well as of campeachy trees, and mountain cabbage palms. Yet soon this wood opened out somewhat; there rose before my eyes a little glade, on which the moon did here shine as though on a sweet English field at home, and, reaching this, I perceived by stopping and looking carefully that my man had passed this way. The long grass was all trodden down-nay, so much so, that the two must have also come this way when they set out as comrades-and, since the imprints of the footsteps were most uneven and without regularity, I felt sure my drunken pirate had struggled and staggered along this track.

So across the little glade I went, following ever the irregular crushings down of the grass, until I came to where it was bordered by more thick underbrush and shrub, and then, even had I doubted I was on the steps of Alderly, I could do so no longer. For now through that thick brushwood and tangled growth of briar, and lacery of trailing things, there was crushed aside a most distinct opening through which a man, or men, must have passed, while, had I desired further proofs of where the man had gone whom I sought, it was before me. Lying on the brushwood, catched off and torn by a thorn, was the broken end of Alderly's red feather, the piece that had hung down over his savage face as he forced the diver to slay himself, and that gave, even in that awful moment, an appearance to him of almost comicality. A comicality, though, to cause a shudder!

Now did I, therefore, loosen my blade in its sheath and set my pistols in my belt carefully, for, since by this time I had gone a mile at least, 'twas not very like I should go much farther before coming on to the desperado, unless he should have turned off at an angle-a thing I could not judge he should have any reason to do. And so I went on very carefully, keeping ever a watch about and around me, so that I should fall into no trap.

Soon, however, I did perceive that the path turned, as I guessed it might perhaps do, and I thought the time was not yet come for me to get up with my chase, when, to my astonishment-in spite of my former ideas that there might be other buccaneers upon this isle-there came to me the sounds of singing and revelling, of shouting and whooping and drinking of healths, and clapping of canikins or glasses on a table.

"The health," I heard a voice shout, "of Winstanley, the diver of Liverpool, the man who strove to contend with Alderly. His health in the place where he is gone, and another to his taker off!" And then there followed the banging and smashing of drinking vessels on the table again, and huzzas and shriekings.

Next uprose a voice a-trolling of a song.

"When money's plenty, boys, we drink To drown our troubles, oh-oh! Carouse, revel, and never think, Upon the morrow, oh-oh!"

"When money's plenty," I heard Alderly repeat. "When money's plenty! Why, and so it is, my blithe lads. Look here in this box, my hearties. Here's enough and to spare for all. Diamonds, sapphires, pearls, gold and silver. Ha! ha! Drink, my lads. Give me the bowl. Peter Hynde, my lad, drink up, and you, Robert Birtson, and Will Magnus, you, and you, Petty, and Crow, and Moody, and fat John Coleman. Drink, you dogs, I say, drink."

"I have landed on a nest of them!" thinks I to myself. "A dozen at least, I believe. Well, I will lie hid awhile, and if they o'ermaster me, why-"

"When money's plenty, boys, we drink! And bring the girls along, oh! Of blood we've shed we never think, Midst dance and jocund song, oh!"

burst out the ruffian again. Then he yelled out, "A toast! a toast! The health of Phips and that accursed Crafer, whose blood I've drunk," at which I started. "So," thinks I, "he deems me dead. 'Tis perhaps best. Yet shall he learn," I muttered twixt my set lips, "that in spite of him and his horde I am alive-he shall-"

"And Bess, my Coromandel girl, bring in the meats!" the villain now shouted. "Ha! ha! here she comes with the steaming turtle! Fall to, my boys, fall to; and here comes our Queen of Port Royal, our golden-haired Barbara who loves us well. My lads! a health to the girl of Port Royal!"

And again there came the banging on the table of fists, then cans, and the voice of Alderly whooping and shouting.

"I must see this crew," I whispered to myself, "e'en though I die for it. I must see these ruffians in their den with their loathsome womankind. I have four shots in my belt, and a good sword. All must be drunk and I am sober! I will do some execution amongst them."

So through the brushwood I went a pace or so, parting the leaves as gently as might be-though that I should be heard there was no fear amidst the infernal clamour and din and shouting of Alderly.

Then, next, I saw before me a hut, or big cabin, built of logs, with a wide, open door and thatched with palm leaves; from out the door there gleamed the light of a lamp, and as I parted some boughs and bushes to get me a view, I could see very well into the hut.

And this is what I witnessed.

CHAPTER XXII.

MAD!

Inside the hut ran a long table on trestles; upon that table were platters and drinking vessels; on it also were some dried fruits, some pieces of dirty, coarse bread, and also some scraps of jerked beef, or, as 'tis called here in the Caribbee-Indian, Boucan; and that, with the exception of some drink in a tub, was all!

There was no steaming turtle or other savoury viands, neither were there any women, golden-haired or others, nor a nest of pirates. Besides Alderly himself, there was in the hut no living soul that I could see. He was alone!

Yet, in front of the table, there lay something on which my eyes could not but fasten, the long box, in which I did believe the stolen treasure was. And also by its side were three bags, or sacks, bulging out full of coin-I could see the impress made upon the canvas by the pieces within-and these I did guess had never come out of the wreck we had been fishing on. They were, I thought-and found afterwards that my thoughts were right-spoils from some others than us. The plunder of another foray!

But at the time I could do nought but watch the great villain, the creature whom I could not deem aught but mad, or, at least, mad from the drink.

His eyes glistening and rolling like a maniac's, he sat in the middle of the table, gibbering and grimacing to either side of him, as if the companions he had named were there; now shouting out a toast, then banging on the table with both his fists, then seizing a can or mug in each of them; next calling out in a deep voice "huzza, huzza," and then altering it to the shrill one of a woman doing the same thing.

Next, he would seize the scooper of the liquor tub, and, with clumsy bows to the empty chairs or stools, for such indeed they were, would fill the glasses standing on the table in front of those chairs, though they being already full he did but pour liquor upon liquor until the whole table streamed with it. Then, for variety, he would tear with his fingers a piece of Boucan off, and with solemn gravity lay it on some tin plates near him, saying to the vacant space behind the plate:

"Barbara, my sweet, 'tis the choicest piece of the haunch; I beseech of you to taste a little more"; or, "Coleman, my fat buck, take a bit more of your own kind," and so forth. Or he would crumble off a bit of his dirty, frowsy bread, and, with his filthy hands putting of it in his mouth, would say, "The turtles' eggs are at their best now. 'Tis the season. Ha! They are succulent!" Then he would drink a deep draught of the spirits by him, call a toast, and begin his bawlings and clappings again.

To see the ruffian sitting there in the half-dim light-for his lamp was none of the best-grimacing and gibbering to vacancy, and addressing people who existed not, was to me a truly awful, nay, a blood-creeping sight! For now I knew what I had before me. I knew that this pirate, this man, whose hands still reeked with the blood of his comrade-one of those whom he had but recently called on them to drink a toast to-was mad with long-continued drinking and p'raps scarce any food since they left the reef; that, indeed, he had the horrors, called by the learned, the "Delirium."