Stolen Treasure Page 6

  The counting-house was in the same building; but Tom, because of Mr. Jones's letter, was conducted directly into the parlor, where the great rich man was awaiting his coming. He was sitting in a leather-covered arm-chair, smoking a pipe of tobacco, and with a bottle of fine old Madeira close to his elbow.

  Tom had not had a chance to buy a new suit of clothes yet, and so he cut no very fine figure in the rough dress he had brought with him from Henlopen. Nor did Mr. Chillingsworth seem to think very highly of his appearance, for he sat looking sideways at Tom as he smoked.

  "Well, my lad," he said; "and what is this great thing you have to tell me that is so mightily wonderful? I got what's-his-name--Mr. Jones's-- letter, and now I am ready to hear what you have to say."

  But if he thought but little of his visitor's appearance at first, he soon changed his sentiments towards him, for Tom had not spoken twenty words when Mr. Chillingsworth's whole aspect changed. He straightened himself up in his seat, laid aside his pipe, pushed away his glass of Madeira, and bade Tom take a chair. He listened without a word as Tom Chist told of the buried treasure, of how he had seen the poor negro murdered, and of how he and Parson Jones had recovered the chest again. Only once did Mr. Chillingsworth interrupt the narrative. "And to think," he cried, "that the villain this very day walks about New York town as though he were an honest man, ruffling it with the best of us! But if we can only get hold of these log-books you speak of. Go on; tell me more of this."

  When Tom Chist's narrative was ended, Mr. Chillingsworth's bearing was as different as daylight is from dark. He asked a thousand questions, all in the most polite and gracious tone imaginable, and not only urged a glass of his fine old Madeira upon Tom, but asked him to stay to supper. There was nobody to be there, he said, but his wife and daughter.

  Tom, all in a panic at the very thought of the two ladies, sturdily refused to stay even for the dish of tea Mr. Chillingsworth offered him.

  He did not know that he was destined to stay there as long as he should live.

  "And now," said Mr. Chillingsworth, "tell me about yourself."

  "I have nothing to tell, your honor," said Tom, "except that I was washed up out of the sea."

  "Washed up out of the sea!" exclaimed Mr. Chillingsworth. "Why, how was that? Come, begin at the beginning, and tell me all."

  Thereupon Tom Chist did as he was bidden, beginning at the very beginning and telling everything just as Molly Abrahamson had often told it to him. As he continued, Mr. Chillingsworth's interest changed into an appearance of stronger and stronger excitement. Suddenly he jumped up out of his chair and began to walk up and down the room.

  "Stop! stop!" he cried out at last, in the midst of something Tom was saying. "Stop! stop! Tell me; do you know the name of the vessel that was wrecked, and from which you were washed ashore?"

  "I've heard it said," said Tom Chist, "'twas the Bristol Merchant."

  "I knew it! I knew it!" exclaimed the great man, in a loud voice, flinging his hands up into the air. "I felt it was so the moment you began the story. But tell me this, was there nothing found with you with a mark or a name upon it?"

  "There was a kerchief," said Tom, "marked with a T and a C."

  "Theodosia Chillingsworth!" cried out the merchant. "I knew it! I knew it! Heavens! to think of anything so wonderful happening as this! Boy! boy! dost thou know who thou art? Thou art my own brother's son. His name was Oliver Chillingsworth, and he was my partner in business, and thou art his son." Then he ran out into the entryway, shouting and calling for his wife and daughter to come.

  So Tom Chist--or Thomas Chillingsworth, as he now was to be called--did stay to supper, after all.

  This is the story, and I hope you may like it. For Tom Chist became rich and great, as was to be supposed, and he married his pretty cousin Theodosia (who had been named for his own mother, drowned in the Bristol Merchant).

  He did not forget his friends, but had Parson Jones brought to New York to live.

  As to Molly and Matt Abrahamson, they both enjoyed a pension of ten pounds a year for as long as they lived; for now that all was well with him, Tom bore no grudge against the old fisherman for all the drubbings he had suffered.

  The treasure-box was brought on to New York, and if Tom Chist did not get all the money there was in it (as Parson Jones had opined he would) he got at least a good big lump of it. And it is my belief that those log-books did more to get Captain Kidd arrested in Boston town and hanged in London than anything else that was brought up against him.

  * * *

  III. THE GHOST OF CAPTAIN BRAND

  Being a Narrative of Certain Extraordinary Adventures that Befell Barnaby True, Esquire, of the Town of New York, in the Year 1753.

  I

  It is not so easy to tell why discredit should be cast upon a man because of something his grandfather may have done amiss, but the world, which is never over-nice in its discrimination as to where to lay the blame, is often pleased to make the innocent suffer instead of the guilty.

  Barnaby True was a good, honest boy, as boys go, but yet was he not ever allowed altogether to forget that his grandfather had been that very famous pirate, Captain William Brand, who, after so many marvellous adventures (if one may believe the catchpenny stories and ballads that were writ about him), was murdered in Jamaica by Captain John Malyoe, the commander of his own consort, the Adventure galley.

  It hath never been denied, that ever I heard, that up to the time of Captain Brand's being commissioned against the South Sea pirates, he had always been esteemed as honest, reputable a sea-captain as could be. When he started out upon that adventure it was with a ship, the Royal Sovereign, fitted out by some of the most decent merchants of New York. Governor Van Dam himself had subscribed to the adventure, and himself had signed Captain Brand's commission. So, if the unfortunate man went astray, he must have had great temptation to do so; many others behaving no better when the opportunity offered in these far-away seas, when so many rich purchases might very easily be taken and no one the wiser.

  To be sure those stories and ballads made our captain to be a most wicked, profane wretch; and if he were, why God knows he suffered and paid for it, for he laid his bones in Jamaica, and never saw his home or his wife or his daughter after he had sailed away on the Royal Sovereign on that long, misfortunate voyage, leaving his family behind him in New York to the care of strangers.

  At the time when Captain Brand so met his fate in Port Royal Harbor he had increased his flotilla to two vessels--the Royal Sovereign (which was the vessel that had been fitted out for him in New York, a fine brigantine and a good sailer), and the Adventure galley, which he had captured somewhere in the South Seas. This latter vessel he placed in command of a certain John Malyoe whom he had picked up no one knows where--a young man of very good family in England, who had turned red-handed pirate. This man, who took no more thought of a human life than he would of a broom straw, was he who afterwards murdered Captain Brand, as you shall presently hear.

  With these two vessels, the Royal Sovereign and the Adventure, Captain Brand and Captain Malyoe swept the Mozambique Channel as clear as a boatswain's whistle, and after three years of piracy, having gained a great booty of gold and silver and pearls, sailed straight for the Americas, making first the island of Jamaica and the harbor of Port Royal, where they dropped anchor to wait for news from home.

  But by this time the authorities had been so stirred up against our pirates that it became necessary for them to hide their booty until such time as they might make their peace with the Admiralty Courts at home. So one night Captain Brand and Captain Malyoe, with two others of the pirates, went ashore with two great chests of treasure, which they buried somewhere on the banks of the Cobra River near the place where the old Spanish fort had stood.

  What happened after the treasure was thus buried no one may tell. 'Twas said that Captain Brand and Captain Malyoe fell a-quarrelling and that the upshot of the matter was that Captain Malyoe shot Captain B
rand through the head, and that the pirate who was with him served Captain Brand's companion after the same fashion with a pistol bullet through the body.

  After that the two murderers returned to their vessel, the Adventure galley, and sailed away, carrying the bloody secret of the buried treasure with them.

  [Illustration: "CAPTAIN MALYOE SHOT CAPTAIN BRAND THROUGH THE HEAD"]

  But this double murder of Captain Brand and his companion happened, you are to understand, some twenty years before the time of this story, and while our hero was but one year old. So now to our present history.

  It is a great pity that any one should have a grandfather who ended his days in such a sort as this; but it was no fault of Barnaby True's, nor could he have done anything to prevent it, seeing he was not even born into the world at the time that his grandfather turned pirate, and that he was only one year old when Captain Brand so met his death on the Cobra River. Nevertheless, the boys with whom he went to school never tired of calling him "Pirate," and would sometimes sing for his benefit that famous catchpenny ballad beginning thus:

  "Oh! my name was Captain Brand, A-sailing, And a-sailing; Oh! my name was Captain Brand, A-sailing free. Oh! my name was Captain Brand, And I sinned by sea and land, For I broke God's just command, A-sailing free."

  'Twas a vile thing to sing at the grandson of so unfortunate a man, and oftentimes Barnaby True would double up his little fists and would fight his tormentors at great odds, and would sometimes go back home with a bloody nose or a bruised eye to have his poor mother cry over him and grieve for him.

  Not that his days were all of teasing and torment, either; for if his comrades did sometimes treat him so, why then there were other times when he and they were as great friends as could be, and used to go a-swimming together in the most amicable fashion where there was a bit of sandy strand below the little bluff along the East River above Fort George.

  There was a clump of wide beech-trees at that place, with a fine shade and a place to lay their clothes while they swam about, splashing with their naked white bodies in the water. At these times Master Barnaby would bawl as lustily and laugh as loud as though his grandfather had been the most honest ship-chandler in the town, instead of a bloody-handed pirate who had been murdered in his sins.

  Ah! It is a fine thing to look back to the days when one was a boy! Barnaby may remember how, often, when he and his companions were paddling so in the water, the soldiers off duty would come up from the fort and would maybe join them in the water, others, perhaps, standing in their red coats on the shore, looking on and smoking their pipes of tobacco.

  Then there were other times when maybe the very next day after our hero had fought with great valor with his fellows he would go a-rambling with them up the Bouwerie Road with the utmost friendliness; perhaps to help them steal cherries from some old Dutch farmer, forgetting in such an adventure what a thief his own grandfather had been.

  But to resume our story.

  When Barnaby True was between sixteen and seventeen years old he was taken into employment in the counting-house of his stepfather, Mr. Roger Hartright, the well-known West Indian merchant, a most respectable man and one of the kindest and best of friends that anybody could have in the world.

  This good gentleman had courted the favor of Barnaby's mother for a long time before he had married her. Indeed, he had so courted her before she had ever thought of marrying Jonathan True. But he not venturing to ask her in marriage, and she being a brisk, handsome woman, she chose the man who spoke out his mind, and so left the silent lover out in the cold. But so soon as she was a widow and free again, Mr. Hartright resumed his wooing, and so used to come down every Tuesday and Friday evening to sit and talk with her. Among Barnaby True's earliest memories was a recollection of the good, kind gentleman sitting in old Captain Brand's double-nailed arm-chair, the sunlight shining across his knees, over which he had spread a great red silk handkerchief, while he sipped a dish of tea with a dash of rum in it. He kept up this habit of visiting the Widow True for a long time before he could fetch himself to the point of asking anything more particular of her, and so Barnaby was nigh fourteen years old before Mr. Hartright married her, and so became our hero's dear and honored foster-father.

  It was the kindness of this good man that not only found a place for Barnaby in the counting-house, but advanced him so fast that, against our hero was twenty-one years old, he had made four voyages as supercargo to the West Indies in Mr. Hartright's ship, the Belle Helen, and soon after he was twenty-one undertook a fifth.

  Nor was it in any such subordinate position as mere supercargo that he sailed upon these adventures, but rather as the confidential agent of Mr. Hartright, who, having no likelihood of children of his own, was jealous to advance our hero to a position of trust and responsibility in the counting-house, and so would have him know all the particulars of the business and become more intimately acquainted with the correspondents and agents throughout those parts of the West Indies where the affairs of the house were most active. He would give to Barnaby the best sort of letters of introduction, so that the correspondents of Mr. Hartright throughout those parts, seeing how that gentleman had adopted our hero's interests as his own, were always at considerable pains to be very polite and obliging in showing every attention to him.

  Especially among these gentlemen throughout the West Indies may be mentioned Mr. Ambrose Greenfield, a merchant of excellent standing who lived at Kingston, Jamaica. This gentleman was very particular to do all that he could to make our hero's stay in these parts as agreeable and pleasant to him as might be. Mr. Greenfield is here spoken of with a greater degree of particularity than others who might as well be remarked upon, because, as the reader shall presently discover for himself, it was through the offices of this good friend that our hero first became acquainted, not only with that lady who afterwards figured with such conspicuousness in his affairs, but also with a man who, though graced with a title, was perhaps the greatest villain who ever escaped a just fate upon the gallows.

  So much for the history of Barnaby True up to the beginning of this story, without which you shall hardly be able to understand the purport of those most extraordinary adventures that afterwards befell him, nor the logic of their consequence after they had occurred.

  II

  Upon the occasion of our hero's fifth voyage into the West Indies he made a stay of some six or eight weeks at Kingston, in the island of Jamaica, and it was at that time that the first of those extraordinary adventures befell him, concerning which this narrative has to relate.

  It was Barnaby's habit, when staying at Kingston, to take lodging with a very decent, respectable widow, by name Mrs. Anne Bolles, who, with three extremely agreeable and pleasant daughters, kept a very clean and well-served house for the accommodation of strangers visiting that island.

  One morning as he sat sipping his coffee, clad only in loose cotton drawers and a jacket of the same material, and with slippers upon his feet (as is the custom in that country, where every one endeavors to keep as cool as may be), Miss Eliza, the youngest of the three daughters--a brisk, handsome miss of sixteen or seventeen--came tripping into the room and handed him a sealed letter, which she declared a stranger had just left at the door, departing incontinently so soon as he had eased himself of that commission. You may conceive of Barnaby's astonishment when he opened the note and read the remarkable words that here follow:

  "Mr. Barnaby True.

  "Sir,--Though you don't know me, I know you, and I tell you this: if you will be at Pratt's Ordinary on Friday next at eight o'clock in the evening, and will accompany the man who shall say to you, 'The Royal Sovereign is come in' you shall learn of something the most to your advantage that ever befell you. Sir, keep this note and give it to him who shall address those words to you, so to certify that you are the man he seeks. Sir, this is the most important thing that can concern you, so you will please say nothing to nobody about it."

  Such was the wording of
the note which was writ in as cramped and villanous handwriting as our hero ever beheld, and which, excepting his own name, was without address, and which possessed no superscription whatever.

  The first emotion that stirred Barnaby True was one of extreme and profound astonishment; the second thought that came into his mind was that maybe some witty fellow--of whom he knew a good many in that place, and wild, mad rakes they were as ever the world beheld--was attempting to play off a smart, witty jest upon him. Indeed, Miss Eliza Bolles, who was of a lively, mischievous temper, was not herself above playing such a prank should the occasion offer. With this thought in his mind Barnaby inquired of her with a good deal of particularity concerning the appearance and condition of the man who had left the note, to all of which Miss replied with so straight a face and so candid an air that he could no longer suspect her of being concerned in any trick against him, and so eased his mind of any such suspicion. The bearer of the note, she informed him, was a tall, lean man, with a red neckerchief tied around his neck and with copper buckles to his shoes, and he had the appearance of a sailor-man, having a great queue of red hair hanging down his back. But, Lord! what was such a description as that in a busy seaport town full of scores of men to fit such a likeness? Accordingly, our hero put the note away into his wallet, determining to show it to his good friend Mr. Greenfield that evening, and to ask his advice upon it.

  This he did, and that gentleman's opinion was the same as his: to wit, that some wag was minded to play off a hoax upon him, and that the matter of the letter was all nothing but smoke.

  III

  Nevertheless, though Barnaby was thus confirmed in his opinion as to the nature of the communication he had received, he yet determined in his own mind that he would see the business through to the end and so be at Pratt's Ordinary, as the note demanded, upon the day and at the time appointed therein.

  Pratt's Ordinary was at that time a very fine and famous place of its sort, with good tobacco and the best rum in the West Indies, and had a garden behind it that, sloping down to the harbor front, was planted pretty thick with palms and ferns, grouped into clusters with flowers and plants. Here were a number of tables, some in little grottos, like our Vauxhall in New York, with red and blue and white paper lanterns hung among the foliage. Thither gentlemen and ladies used sometimes to go of an evening to sit and drink lime-juice and sugar and water (and sometimes a taste of something stronger), and to look out across the water at the shipping and so to enjoy the cool of the day.